SSEP Co-hosts CubeSat Conference

SSEP students at University of Alaska Fairbanks teamed up with the Oregon Space Grant to host a workshop that walked through the process of developing a science mission and building space hardware. The workshop took place August 19th-20th, 2016 and was hosted at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Musuem. The workshop was orientated towards helping new CubeSat program get started and creating collaborations between existing programs.

Among the highlights for the first day was a presentation on the NASA ELaNa Program and a CubeSat 101 introduction from NASA Mission Manager Scott Higginbotham. Morehead State's Bob Twiggs gave a presentation and the history and future of CubeSats, along with a few useful hints. To end the day, participants then went through a mock satellite design process led by SSEP students and staff.

On the second day, CalPoly's Justin Foley gave a presentation on Mission operations and a introduction to Ground Stations. Brian Sander, Deputy Director for the Colorado Space Grant, gave a presentation on the mission management aspects to sucesfully run a CubeSat program. During lunch, participants were given a chance to take the stage and present their own programs and missions. The conference was ended with breakout sessions, where participants were given a chance to have open discussion about subsytem design and mission success.