SATELLITE BY WEISS SCHOOL STUDENTS TO GO INTO ORBIT
Weiss kids craft only middle school project to win space flight spot.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — NASA will launch a tiny satellite designed by Palm Beach Gardens middle school students to study whether bacteria can survive in melting ice while in orbit.
WeissSat-1 satellite likely will launch from Cape Canaveral or an Air Force base in California by the end of the year, The Weiss School science teacher Kevin Simmons said.
The satellite is primarily for education, but the students’ findings could have implications for whether life can survive anywhere other than earth.
The private school is exclusively for gifted students in pre-K through eighth grade.
NASA chose 34 of the educational satellites, known as CubeSats, to send into space out of more than 100 proposals. Weiss School students had the only proposal from a middle school to make the cut, Simmons said. Universities submitted 31 of the successful proposals, he said.
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City, told the students that out-competing other schools to get their satellite into space is “inspiring” during a visit to the school last Tuesday.
Mast’s legislative director walked students through how to write a resolution that supports giving more money to NASA for the CubeSat initiative that allowed them to launch their satellite, said Shawna Christenson, the school’s oral communications and debate instructor.
Students who take an aerospace class and work on an after-school team developed the CubeSat. Those students and students from the debate team traveled to Washington on Sunday to lobby Florida’s congressional delegation to raise awareness and money for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative.
On Tuesday, Mast will introduce the resolution the students drafted.
Christenson, who previously worked in a public school, wants other teachers to know about NASA’s CubeSat initiative.
“They don’t necessarily know what’s out there,” Christenson said.
The contingent of students from The Weiss School will represent the Space Exploration Alliance when they meet with lawmakers after getting a briefing from the alliance’s leaders..
The students called the congressional offices first to get a feel for how knowledgeable people are about the CubeSat initiative, said eighth-grade student Mackenzie G., whose mother asked that her last name not be used.
It’s important that other students get the same opportunities to expand their learning and get CubeSats into space that The Weiss School students have, she said.