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Reaching for the stars pays off: Student-built satellite deployed into space

Katie Scott | Catholic Herald

St. Thomas More Cathedral School Satellite-1, approximately 4 inches long and weighing about 3 pounds, is seen in this screen shot deploying into space from the International Space Station May 16. The satellite was built with the help of NASA engineers and St. Thomas More faculty to collect photos for research and education.

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When students of St. Thomas More Cathedral School in
Arlington gaze up at the sky in the upcoming months, they’ll
know that a small piece of their efforts is orbiting Earth,
offering its inhabitants information about the “final
frontier.”

On May 16, a satellite students created was deployed into
space from the International Space Station, a major
achievement in a four-year effort. With assistance from NASA
engineers and St. Thomas More faculty, their “CubeSat,” a
miniature satellite, was built to orbit approximately 250
miles from Earth collecting photos for research and
education. While high schools and universities have
participated in NASA’s CubeSat program, St. Thomas More is
the first elementary school in the United States to do so.

The entire student body gathered in the school gym to watch
the Monday deployment on NASA TV.

“It was extremely exciting,” said St. Thomas More Principal
Eleanor McCormack. It’s been a long project requiring a lot
of stamina from students, but to “reach this milestone I feel
very proud and lucky,” she said. “It shows the kids that hard
work really does pay off.”

Now students eagerly are awaiting images, which will be
viewed on computers in the school’s “Mission Operations
Center” possibly within a few days, according to McCormack.

The method used to transmit the photos from the satellite is
called “slow-scan television” and has been employed for many
years. Images from the moon were sent this way during the
Apollo 11 mission, said Joe Pellegrino, a NASA mission
manager and St. Thomas More parent who proposed the satellite
project several years ago. A camera takes a photo, and each
pixel is turned into sound. The sounds are transmitted to the
ground and received by an amateur radio. Then a computer
connected to the radio turns the sounds back into a picture.
“The picture is reconstructed pixel by pixel,” Pellegrino
said.

St. Thomas More was among 16 organizations NASA selected to
receive a flight opportunity and was in the company of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and John Hopkins Applied
Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Joining the St. Thomas More Cathedral School Satellite-1, or
STMSat-1, in orbit May 16 were CubeSats from the University
of Colorado Boulder and the University of Michigan.

Using the Satellite Safari app on iPads, students will follow
the satellite’s orbit. The STMSat-1,
sent to the space station via a NASA rocket in December
,
is expected to remain in orbit for several months.

Individuals at numerous locations around the world also hope
to receive images from the satellite. McCormack said
connecting with the other locations, which include elementary
and high schools, will help develop students’ communication
skills and understand the project’s global implications.

“We don’t know when we’ll start seeing the photos,” said
McCormack, “but this is a wonderful step.”

Watch a video
of NASA Administrator Caharles Bolden congratulating St.
Thomas More students.

To follow the satellite

Download the Satellite Safari app on iTunes.

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