The group effort of teens from six Irvine high schools is set to blast through the Earth’s atmosphere later this week – a much-anticipated moment for students after more than a year of delays.
If successful, this will be the first launch for Irvine CubeSat, a STEM program made up of teams from the schools in the Irvine and Tustin districts. Their creation, IRVINE01 – a satellite not much bigger than a Rubik’s Cube, will ride a rocket up to the stars and then drift through the cosmos.
Once it reaches beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, the satellite will begin snapping photos of Venus, stars and other celestial bodies with an on-board camera. A team back on Earth, prepared with funding for a year of operations, will then make use of the data sent back for a series of calculations and research.
Irvine CubeSat co-founder Brent Freeze said the team hasn’t lost its momentum with the delays, and in fact expects to be launching a second satellite later this month, on a date yet to be announced. That’s not all – the program will launch a third CubeSat in 2020, and has further plans for a dozen missions. The next two satellites, dubbed the IRVINE02 and IRVINE03, have both been sponsored by NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites initiative.
It’s little wonder the team has been looking to keep busy – though students finished the IRVINE01 in May of 2017, repeated delays caused by technical difficulties and unfavorable conditions have pushed the launch of their first creation back by more than a year. Some students who had been working on the project for most of their high school lives have already graduated – though they will have a chance to see the results of their efforts at a private launch party this weekend.
The challenges did end up opening a few doors to opportunity, though – including a trip to New Zealand for Northwood High School senior Melinda Chiao.
“What a wonderful experience – we never thought we’d be sending a student out of state on a field trip, let alone to the other side of the planet,” Freeze said.
Chiao is a member of Team Power, a group of Northwood students dedicated to managing all functions of the CubeSat’s solar panels and lithium battery array. After its lengthy delays, IRVINE01’s batteries were in need of a charge.
In October, Chiao made the journey to the satellite’s launch site, located on the southern tip of New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. There, she worked with engineers from Huntington Beach-based Rocket Lab, the launch site’s owner and Irvine CubeSat’s partner in the launch of IRVINE01.
Chiao joined up with Irvine CubeSat in her sophomore year, and said she credits her experiences in the program with helping her decide what she wants to do with her life. Originally considering a path in business or economics, Chiao said she’s now fixed on a career in engineering.
“After this whole exposure to the engineering field, I actually have the confidence to go into the field. Even though it’s a predominantly male field, there are so many females interested in it. I feel like I can go into this with no problem and actually succeed,” Chiao said. “I’m really excited to see where this program will go, and what students my age will accomplish in the future.”
The launch window for the IRVINE01 cube satellite opens at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10. The public will be able to view a live stream of its launch at rocketlabusa.com/live-stream.