Tucson Standard

The sun barely peeks over the horizon as a suitcase-like transport box exits Steward Observatory, home to the University of Arizona Department of Astronomy. Inside, held snugly in place by foam, is precious cargo: CatSat, the university's first satellite built entirely by students.

After loading it into the back of a car, Shae Henley and Walter Rahmer, both engineering students at UArizona, prepare for the 660-mile trip from Tucson to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Their mission is to deliver the satellite and fit it inside a Firefly rocket that will launch into low-Earth orbit as early as July 1. If everything goes according to plan, CatSat will orbit around Earth every 95 minutes, gathering data about space weather using an inflatable antenna from FreeFall Aerospace and a state-of-the-art radio from Rincon Research Corporation.

CatSat is a small satellite known as a CubeSat. The project kickoff was in 2016. For several years, students meticulously wired up the satellite inside a clean room in the university's Drake Building. Henley and Rahmer were part of the CatSat integration team, which also included team leads Hilly Paige and Del Spangler, both UArizona alumni, and engineering student Sarah Li.

The main body of CatSat is commercially available. Chris Walker, a UArizona professor of astronomy and principal investigator of the CatSat project explained: "It's like the spacecraft's heart, lungs and power – but you have to put in all the instrumentation yourself, wire it up, program the spacecraft and test it," he said. "The students did all of that."

CubeSats are modular; they consist of standardized components. Consisting of six 10-by-10-by-10-centimeter cubes, CatSat is roughly the size of a large cereal box with densely packed wiring inside.

"It's kind of like sitting on your suitcase trying to get it to close," Walker said.

The compactness has its drawbacks. Henley stated: "CubeSats are popular with universities because they're a great way for students to get experience with small spacecraft and do science at relatively low cost," she said. "But while technology can be shrunk down with miniaturized components...there are size constraints." Their solution was an inflatable antenna made of Mylar.

"With an inflatable antenna you can pack a 10-foot antenna inside a 2-foot space," Walker explained.

The idea for CatSat originated from FreeFall Aerospace’s demonstration of an inflatable antenna developed by Walker and Doug Stetson in 2016. Aman Chandra contributed significantly to this project as well.

In 2018, FreeFall tested its inflatable antenna at high altitude via NASA balloon flights which paved the way for its deployment on CatSat.

Before deploying its inflatable antenna resembling a beach ball shape,” CatSat will use another whip antenna for initial studies on Earth's upper atmosphere," Henley noted.

"The ionosphere fluctuates due to changing solar activity affecting ham radio signals," Walker added highlighting their focus on studying these effects during transitions between day-night terminator lines impacting radio frequencies globally too.”

Ham radios satellites have been operational since early days following Sputnik launches aiding global communications technologies including ongoing propagation studies such advancements align closely supporting amateur operators worldwide alongside other scientific pursuits thereby serving broader communities effectively making crucial contributions beyond typical theoretical classroom learning realms henceforth propelling future missions toward lunar/Mars-centric explorations leveraging recent GOMspace donations further ensuring sustainability across diverse applications going forward inevitably even surpassing conventional boundaries altogether promising wider potentials through continued endeavors undoubtedly fostering unprecedented developments ahead ultimately reaffirming limitless possibilities indeed!”

"CatSat itself uses GOMspace spacecraft bus donation guarantees continuation,” remarked Henley underscoring immense value derived herein empowering extended outreach initiatives affirmatively achieving remarkable milestones continually pushing frontiers higher eventually transcending conventional paradigms evermore inspiring aspirations boundlessly enriching humanity holistically nonetheless!

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