05/16/2016
Students at St Thomas More (STM) Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia,
erupted into cheers and celebration today (May 16) as their STMSat-1[1] CubeSat
finally was deployed from the International Space Station. Equipped with a
slow-scan TV (SSTV) payload, STMSat-1 will transmit on the 70 centimeter
Amateur Radio band (437.800 MHz). The satellite is the first to be designed and
built by grade schoolers, who were supported by NASA technical advisors and by
local radio amateurs.
Transported to the ISS in December by an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft, the
kit-built satellite first had been scheduled for release in mid-February. That
deployment was postponed until early March, however, before being put on hold
again. The satellite project is part of the school's STEM (science, technology,
engineering, mathematics) education initiatives.
St Thomas More includes students from pre-kindergarten through grade 8. The
project aims to engage other schools around the world as "Remote Mission
Operation Centers" (RMOC[2]s). NASA's Technology Demonstration Office provided
the school with a mobile "clean room" to ensure that the construction phase met
with strict guidelines and standards for launch and deployment from the ISS.
The space agency also provided the school with an antenna to receive the SSTV
images and temperature readings the satellite sends back.
The SSTV camera onboard STMSat-1 will transmit a Martin-2 image every 30
seconds. It will not transmit a beacon signal, however. The transmitter runs 3
W, and there is no onboard data storage capability. STMSat-1 has an estimated
lifetime of at least 9 months.
[1] http://www.stmsat-1.org/rmoc/
[2] http://www.stmsat-1.org/rmoc/
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