Heads in the clouds: Stockbridge students build, program satellite for launch

STOCKBRIDGE — A few dozen Stockbridge High School students have their heads tuned to the clouds, miles from Earth.

They'll be shooting off high-powered rockets and launching their own satellite toward the skies this year.

"This is opening a lot of doors for the future," said Jason Gruber, a 17-year-old junior.

A project he's leading − shooting a large model rocket to 800 feet into the air and landing safe with an egg, a valuable payload these days − could help him and other students forge aerospace careers.

And that's just a fraction of the height these students plan to reach this year with a satellite they helped to program and build. They expect to send a CubeSat − a 3.9-inch square, palm-sized miniature satellite − into a suborbital launch some time this year. A date remains undetermined.

"I would like to possibly go to space or send something into space," Gruber said.

CubeSat should reach more than 300,000 feet into the air, not quite outer space, said Jack Hammerberg, an 18-year-old senior leading the satellite project after years with the class.

Bob Richards, teacher of The Special Projects Lab, is optimistic, saying the satellite should dance on the edge of space, about 65 miles from the ground at its peak.

The class has booked a slot on a private space flight from bluShift Aerospace in Maine, and their satellite will be joined by many others, largely from universities and companies. Some CubeSats can collect and transmit data for up to a quarter of a century until they are shut off or struck by other debris.

"What got me interested is, as high school students, we could actually launch something into space and take pictures and document the whole process," Hammerberg said, explaining why he became more ambitious. "In my mind, that was meant for universities and big companies."

There are likely only a handful of high schools in the country where students get to work with real satellites, he said.

Younger Stockbridge students, including some middle school students, are experimenting with a slightly simpler version of the satellite, minus the camera and with some wood instead of metal parts.

For more than a decade, students have opted into a special lab at Stockbridge Junior/Senior High School where they can suggest and build technology.

They've built a two-person bike capable of riding on the moon and have simulated growing plants in space similar to NASA's International Space Station.

The team, changing every year as students graduate and new ones join, has been featured on "60 Minutes" and plenty of other news profiles for more than a decade. Often their big project involves underwater robots that explore WWII remains on the island nation of Palau, the site of a fierce World War II battle between American and Japanese forces in 1944.

Richards said his class gives students a chance to do advanced work and see themselves in a variety of careers, from farming to aerospace engineering. The workspace for students includes automated machines, 3D printers, pipes and wires, electronics, computers and the freedom to explore ideas. It is modeled after the Coastal Observing Research and Development Center at the University of South California-San Diego, which has worked with the class on many of their underwater expeditions.

The class, in late 2022, flew out to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a convention about small satellites. They were on the inaugural flight to Orlando out of the Capital Region International Airport in Lansing. On board, along with many of the students, was a version of the CubeSat they plan to launch.

While there in Florida, Gruber saw another school was using rockets to help test satellite components and learned about a national competition to hit 800 feet with an egg intact.

"They had a high-powered rocket. I said I'd love to build a rocket. They gave me advice and told me about a book," he said. "I told Mr. Richards I’d love to build a rocket.

"He told me to do research, build a team and you can go do it."

Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or on Twitter @MikeEllis_AIM

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Stockbridge High School students build, program satellite for space launch