Rachel Gasparini
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Minotaur I rocket will prepare to lift off with 29 satellites, the most ever launched at one time, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during a two-hour launch window starting at 4:30 p.m. today. Of these satellites, 28 of them are CubeSats, small satellites that originated at Cal Poly.
“We are looking good for launch time. There were some early winds in the day, but by launch time we’ll be all set to go,” said Jason Crusan, director of the advanced exploration systems division at NASA.
“We have some of our deployment mechanisms that are in (Minotaur I rocket),” said aerospace engineering professor Puig-Suari, one of two professors who started the CubeSat program.
In addition to sending off 29 satellites, this launch is making history by sending off a CubeSat satellite built by Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia.
“It’s the first satellite ever built by a high school that’s going to be launched,” Puig-Suari said.
The CubeSat project began with Cal Poly and Stanford University in 1999, and the two universities had their first launch in 2003. Ten years later, CubeSats are revolutionizing space technology as schools and corporations use them around the world to further understand space and to break records.
“We’re just really thankful for the CubeSat standard and for the real support that the university community is producing, not just for education but events and scientific technology,” Crusan said. “Universities like Cal Poly have played a critical role in advancement capabilities for the world.”
NASA will live stream the launch.