The Valparaiso University Satellite Team watched a mass launch of 119 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base, near Los Angeles, on March 30 that included a payload they started designing and building in 2024.
“That’s actually kind of a fast timeframe for a project that’s launched into space,” said Dan White, VU associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “That’s why we have juniors and sophomores with gray hairs.”
As part of the three-year-old Valparaiso Space Program, the Satellite Team had already been in the process of designing a PocketQube satellite with plans to seek a launch opportunity when White met representatives from NearSpace at the 2024 Small Satellite Conference in Utah.
They invited the university to take a spot on the collaboration and the team switched its focus to designing and building the payload – a system which allows ground stations to download data from the satellite – as part of a collaboration with five other universities.
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The experience has already given junior electrical engineering major Brayden Kuchenbacker a future career path.
“I wasn’t sure what I exactly wanted to do,” he said. After working on the payload, though, he plans to search for jobs that will allow him to work on satellites. “I think it’s really cool you’re communicating with something in space.”
Sophomore mechanical engineering and physics major Victoria Kelly has also gotten some clarification on what her degree will allow her to do in the working world.
“I’ve always known I wanted to do aerospace, but I didn’t really know all that that meant,” she said, adding that understanding project management and the teamwork that goes into such a collaboration has been eye-opening.
Similar experiences have already been helping VU alumni with their career placement. Recent graduates who were members of VSP have been offered jobs with Boeing, NewSpace, and United Launch Alliance.
Current VSP President Kenny Blanton, a sophomore electrical engineering major, said the club is a very good way for students to figure out what subdisciplines they’re interested in, “especially now that we have multiple projects going on.”
Before graduation, though, they’ll be gleaning all the knowledge they can from this satellite project, which is part of NearSpace Education’s Dream Big Program. Once the team learns the exact orbit of the satellite, it can predict how long it will stay there, which can range from six months to five years, depending on variables such as proximity to sunspots.
An exact copy of the payload sits in the university’s clean room.
“We can poke it and turn the power off and turn the power on and vet the commands we’re about to send to space,” White explained. They can also use the copy to mitigate problems with the real thing.
“Tumbling satellites is a problem,” White said. “You can actually twist yourself to slow down tumbling.”
“Right now we are working on documentation and actually communicating with the satellite,” Blanton said.
Kuchenbacker said satellites are one of the more difficult engineering projects.
“I feel like it’s a really good experience to be prepared,” he said. “It also allows you to apply your knowledge to a real-world thing.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.