Nebraska students to make history with research satellite

Nebraska's first-ever research satellite will be heading to space in March if the Big Red Satellite Team has its way. The cube-shaped satellite, called a CubeSat, is scheduled to orbit the Earth and test the effectiveness of an emerging type of solar cell.

The Big Red Satellite Team includes eighth- through 11th-grade students from Nebraska, as well as members of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Aerospace eXperimental Payloads team. The AXP team members lead the planning and building of the CubeSat and mentor the middle and high school students.

The team consists of approximately 24 middle and high school students. They come from Aurora High School, Bellevue High School, Brownell Talbot, Burke High School, Gretna High School, Lincoln East High School, Lincoln Lutheran, Lincoln North Star High School, Millard North High School, Norris Middle School and homeschools.

In 2021, NASA selected the BRS team to be part of the CubeSat Launch Initiative and they have been working on the project since.

The team is preparing for a vibration test scheduled for mid-October at Johnson Space Center in Houston. This test will shake the satellite to mimic its experience during the launch.

If the satellite passes the test unharmed, it will be integrated into a CubeSat deployer at Johnson Space Center in December and launched from Kennedy Space Center in March, according to AXP team lead and UNL senior Joel Murch-Shafer. He said there is some nervousness in passing this test.

"Feasibly, if we pass the vibration test, nothing that the CubeSat should experience would be outside the realm of what it has already experienced," Murch-Shafer said. "But it is nerve-wracking because you just kind of get to wrap it up for months before you actually see it again."

Murch-Shafer helped write the grant the BRS Team received from NASA. While the grant did not include any direct funding, UNL Aerospace Club Advisor Karen Stelling said NASA provided "launch costs of having space in a rocket, support costs of advisors, help with licensing and vibration testing."

A separate NASA Nebraska Space Grant provided several grants to help with material costs. Those contributions amounted to approximately $37,000 over three years, according to Stelling.

Even before the grant application process, the team needed to have an idea of the scope of their research, said Stelling. Middle and high school students on the BRS Team came up with the idea to test perovskite solar cells, which ended up being an important contribution.

"It was a great choice, because we had no idea how interested NASA was in developing perovskites," Stelling said.

Perovskites are a family of crystals that scientists hope to use to create efficient solar cells. Solar cells are the building blocks that make up solar panels.

Compared to the materials currently used to produce solar cells, perovskites are lighter and thinner and thus, more cost-effective. Stelling said NASA is very interested in developing perovskites for their upcoming missions.

"As they're working on the Artemis project, and getting to the moon, and getting to Mars, if you can have a lighter, more efficient, less-expensive solar cell, that makes a lot more possible," Stelling said.

Although the perovskite cells are efficient, they are sensitive to humidity. Too much exposure to humidity makes the perovskites defective. Stelling said the team had to figure out how to create an airtight container to keep the perovskites in pristine condition throughout the integration process.

Despite these challenges, Stelling and Murch-Shafer are proud of the team's achievements, like making connections across the industry.

"Being able to make connections has been really exciting. And then, having the students present at the SmallSat Education Conference, and just watching them grow and seeing things work and their excitement has been really fun," Stelling said.

Murch-Shafer said that getting hands-on experience before entering the career field has been rewarding for him and other students.

"I have learned a ton, and I know people have come into the club and left the club able to do much more than they could have when they came into this. It's a fun way to learn these skills," Murch-Shafer said.

Stelling said team members learn valuable skills that they won't find in their textbooks.

"The hands-on learning teaches you that not everything fits together perfectly, and you're going to have to do some troubleshooting to get it to work," Stelling said.

BRS team members will travel to watch either the integration or the launch, thanks to community foundations and individually contributed funds, Stelling said. She's excited for the students to make history for Nebraska and see their years of efforts pay off.

"Nebraska wants to build its STEM workforce. They want to have students from Nebraska finding those opportunities, and even the industry thinking about Nebraska as a place they can bring their aerospace," Stelling said. "The fact that our students are getting that exposure, and Nebraska is getting that exposure, is great."