On Feb. 20, a rocket launched from Virginia Space Flight Authority had a load of student built satellites.
These piece-of-bread sized satellites called ThinSats were released in near space to collect data on that lesser studied portion of the atmosphere.
Taylor students put together two different ThinSats for this launch.
“We developed on a couple of different forms,'' said Engineering Lab Manager Rob Cartwright. “And they worked on sensors and they worked on all kinds of cool stuff to interface and measure the atmosphere and maybe some roll and tumble.”
These are not the first satellites that Taylor students have built. Computer Science and Engineering Professor Stefan Brandle said that he has been involved since the first satellite that Taylor students built in 2001, TUSAT-1.
While Taylor Engineering and Computer Science departments have worked on several satellites, the two that were launched on Feb. 20 were built under the most unique circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the students to go home in the middle of building the first satellite, but work couldn’t stop if they wanted to get the satellites completed in time for the launch which, at that point, was scheduled for April.
“They got sent home with sensors and all sorts of other stuff and they continued to work,” said Brandle. “And somebody would Zoom in and actually synchronize the code that they’ve been working on and then we run the test, to download to the satellite and actually watch what’s happening.”
After several delays the satellites were launched last month, but unfortunately no data transmissions were received.
The scientists and technicians at Virginia Space Flight Authority are working on figuring out what happened to stop all of the ThinSats on that flight from transmitting, but for now, no one knows.
Despite this failure to transmit, and the difficulties in construction, the Taylor professors still view the project as a success.
“Where else can you get that kind of experience that you can put on your resume that hey, I actually developed a satellite” said Steven Dalcher, engineering project support. “Whether or not it worked.
Cartwright even views the COVID situation as beneficial to teaching the students better teamwork and communication skills remotely, which will be an important skill in this digitizing world.