Satellite built by SSU students with partners at two universities successfully launched into orbit

Rohnert Park – Transporter 15, a ride-share mission operated by SpaceX, lifted off on Friday, Nov. 28 from Space Force Base Vandenberg in California carrying a satellite co-designed and co-built by students at Sonoma State University and partner universities University of New Hampshire and Howard University.

The CubeSat satellite – about the size of a loaf of bread – deployed approximately an hour and three minutes (T-plus 1:03) after launch, and will gather and transmit data to be analyzed in collaboration with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.

The CubeSat was one of more than 100 satellites on the rocket, and will gather data to expand understanding of how the solar wind interacts with the upper atmosphere in the polar regions. Solar windstorms can cause the atmosphere to expand, causing additional drag on satellites that cause them to de-orbit earlier than expected. 

Understanding the solar wind helps scientists in their quest to improve space weather forecasting and better protect technology in space and on Earth – such as communication networks, power grids, and GPS – from potentially damaging large solar flare events.

A team of 70 undergraduate students from Sonoma State, the University of New Hampshire, and Howard University designed, developed and built the satellite, which was named 3UCubed – reflecting the overall concept of uplifting undergraduate students to study upwelling, and giving a nod to the three participating universities. Students came from a variety of disciplines, including engineering, computer science, physics, and others.

The successful liftoff after a handful of postponements is an important milestone in a five-plus year project odyssey. 

“This is a very big deal for us,” said Dr. Laura Peticolas, the associate director of the EdEon STEM Learning Center at Sonoma State and a space physicist who was the lead faculty mentor for the project.  For Sonoma State, which is not an R1 research university, the successful launch and deployment is particularly notable. “We don’t have a bunch of physics research labs …we are small and mighty.

The three universities secured NASA funding for this project just weeks before the 2020 COVID-related shutdown forced the schools to shift to online learning. For the CubeSat project, this meant students had to figure out how to build a satellite while collaborating via Zoom. Peticolas said the CubeSat odyssey involved driving, and in some cases shipping, electronics and other satellite components to students’ homes.

SSU’s ground station received its first beacon contact with the satellite at approximately T-plus 1:14 on Nov. 28. The ground station was originally built by SSU students, with mentor Dr. Garrett Jernigan (1951-1922). It was subsequently rebuilt by the 3UCubed team at SSU in the Summer of 2022 to meet the needs of the current mission.