SILVER SPRING, Maryland — Ever wanted to boss around a satellite? Now’s your chance.
A team of very patient middle and high schoolers have worked and waited through a pandemic, three presidential elections, and at least eight high school graduations to get their shot at Earth orbit with a unique project – a tweeting satellite.
Now, the SilverSat team is finally going to space. The student-built CubeSat with its camera and radio is scheduled to launch with a batch of other science projects on Northrop Grumman’s NG 23 resupply mission to the International Space Station aboard the reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral on Sunday, September 14.
Once released, the little satellite will tweet photographs to order from orbit. The middle and high school students who made up the original project team in 2017 conceived the plan, and the final generation of students has taken it to the finish line in 2025. Their idea: a satellite in orbit could tweet directly to followers from space.
Want to make your own order for a picture from space? Visit the SilverSat website at https://silversat.org/
Anyone, anywhere, can choose a spot in the Northern Hemisphere they would like photographed. The SilverSat team will determine if it’s feasible and calculate when the satellite will reach the best vantage point, get the shot, and the satellite itself will post it on X (formerly Twitter).
SilverSat founder and organizer Dave Copeland inspects the partly assembled CubeSat with student team members Nicholas Niski, Matthew Kay, Anthony Salvado and Matthew Salvado in 2024.
“It really is that cubesat tweeting that picture directly,” says David Copeland, a Silver Spring, Maryland engineer who started the project.
The dozens of middle and high school students who have made up the SilverSat team designed and built the 10 cubic cm (4 cubic inch) CubeSat from scratch. They have filled the aluminum frame with sophisticated electronics, a computer, a radio, an antenna, a power system, and a guidance system.
They have learned how to write computer code, how to design complicated electronics and how to fit everything into a small metal frame. They have learned how to manage projects to NASA’s exacting standards and how to present their progress to a panel who would decide whether and when they’d actually get a ride into space.
Most of all, they have learned patience.
“I started working on this in March of 2014,” says Copeland. Copeland met with parents of middle and high school students in his neighborhood to start the organization, get the necessary paperwork in place, and started recruiting and meeting with students in the spring of 2017.
The CubeSat, 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm, contains everything it needs to power itself, receive commands, navigate, take pictures and transmit them back to Earth from orbit.
Copeland, himself a space communications systems specialist, knew it would take time and patience to navigate NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. “We sent our proposal in to NASA in the fall of 2020 and we were accepted into the program in 2021,” he says.
The pandemic forced many of the meetings to go virtual. One launch got scrubbed. Launch dates have been moved. Sunday’s launch may or may not happen.
Most of NASA’S educational CubeSat missions have involved university teams. SilverSat – named for its Silver Spring origins – is one of the few to involve middle and high school students. But it’s no kiddie spacecraft.
“The kids have learned so much,” says Copeland. “They have learned electronics. We have had several kids now get their amateur radio licenses. We have had kids stepping into leadership positions.”
Mentors had to help students find their own interests – a big challenge when working with students ranging in age from 11 to 18. “You have to approach every kid on their own level,” he says.
The payload board controls the satellite.
And it’s paid off. Many SilverSat alumni are now studying STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) subjects in college or university. A few have graduated from college and some are working as engineers.
Isaac Schofer, now a 20-year-old electrical engineering student at Capitol Technology University in Laurel, Maryland, is one. “I do believe SilverSat has successfully set me on a career in engineering,” Schofer says.
He plans to drive to Cape Canaveral to watch Sunday’s launch with his family. “I felt I was so involved in the project that I simply could not leave it,” Schofer says.
About 20 students and family members plan to be on hand at the Cape for the launch. Another 25 or so plan a watch party in Silver Spring.
Launching a satellite requires more than engineering skills. Project team members also learned how to organize, explain and present their work. They had to persuade NASA their project was worth carrying into orbit. SilverSat Systems Engineering Team Lead Aubrey Forsgren rehearses Critical Design Review, a final presentation of the project, in January 2024.
The work doesn’t end with a successful launch, says Copeland. Each request must be handled by a student. Students will have to find the latitude and longitude of each spot and figure out if the satellite can achieve the right camera angle. “So the kids must think, when we contact the spacecraft, what do we have to do?” he said.
Want to make your own order for a picture from space? Visit the SilverSat website at https://silversat.org/
SilverSat is on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.
For more information, interviews, or photos contact:
- Leticia Barr Leticia@silversat.org
- David Copeland Dave@silversat.org