NASA selects Nebraska students’ satellite to orbit in space

A team of Nebraska middle and high school students, mentored by Nebraska undergraduate engineering students, will have their satellite placed into Earth orbit as part of a NASA launch in the next several years. The project is one of 14 research satellites from nine states — and the first ever from Nebraska.

For the project, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Aerospace eXperimental Payload (AXP) student team is working with students from middle and high schools - eighth- through 11th-graders who hail from the Omaha metro area, Lincoln and Aurora to research, design and build a payload for NASA's CubeSat program. Construction has taken place at Nebraska Innovation Studio.

On April 24, the Nebraska Big Red Satellite team will launch its first high-altitude balloon with six test payloads as a precursor to the NASACubeSat Launch Initiative. The test will occur at the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum in Ashland. The public is invited to attend a brief program beginning at 9 a.m. Liftoff is scheduled for about 9:30 a.m. Rep. Don Bacon and former astronaut Clayton Anderson are scheduled to speak to the team.

The launch is in partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s TED/STEM 8860 Invention and Innovation in Engineering Education class, which will conduct the “dual” high-altitude balloon near-space experiment launch with Nebraska’s AXP student team. TED/STEM 8860 graduate candidates (in-service STEM educators) are developing content- and grade-appropriate near-space experiments for their respective classrooms. AXP is testing components for the nanosatellite and supervising the Big Red Satellite team’s near-space experiments.