NASA picked RHODES COLLEGE to go to SPACE

Soon, Rhodes College is sending an experiment to space. e The college’s research satellite project is among 14 selected by NASA to travel on rockets launching between 2022 and 2025. The recently announced group is the twelfth to have ever been selected, and it’s the first time Rhodes has launched such a spacecraft. e NASA’S initiative accepts applications from K-12 and higher education as well as nonprofits, and has sent a couple hundred of the small satellites, called Cubesats, to space over the years.

Rhodes’ project, named RHOK-SAT, will be testing solar cell technology in space.

Though the experiment can have large implications, the object college students and faculty are creating to test the new materials is fairly small, at just 10-by-10-by-10 centimeters. In Cubesat language, it’s defined as a “1U” or “one unit” spacecraft; other research groups may make a satellite up to 12U in size.

But the vessel is packed with a computer, transceiver and antenna, as well as its own power supply.

That’s in addition to the materials that are part of the experiment, succinctly called the Cubesat’s payload, explained Joseph Mcpherson, who is the project director for Rhodes’ Cubesat.

What will the Cubesat do in space?

The project requires a great amount of preparation on Earth — in a lab on Rhodes’ campus to be exact — before it falls into orbit for its year-plus space

mission.

“We get it up in space, and then it’s Newton’s laws after that,” explained Brent Hoffmeister, a physics professor on the project and husband to Ann Viano, also a physics professor on the faculty Cubesat team who led the project toward the solar material it will be testing.

About eight solar cells, each about a 1-by-1 centimeter, will be arranged on one half of one face of the Cubesat. In practical use, several solar cells, also referred to as photovoltaic cells, are combined to create solar panels, which generate electricity from sunlight.

In the future, the cells RHOK-SAT is testing could be used to power other space missions.

“This sounds kind of pretty sci-fi, but putting bases on the moon, of course those will need power of some kind,” Hoffmeister added, referring to NASA’S Artemis program. “And solar power’s readily available, so some of this technology could be used for that purpose.”

Solar cells can be made of different materials, and Rhodes College is testing solar cell materials produced in a lab at the University of Oklahoma (hence the “OK” in RHOK-SAT).

Viano was visiting the university for a women in physics conference and saw that one of the labs was working on solar cell material. The RHOK-SAT will test the material in space for the first time.

“We want to see how they perform when they’re in the space environment, because there’s a lot of harmful radiation that can cause the cells to degrade with time,” she explained, also noting that space can also include many temperature extremes.

If the RHOK-SAT has the same orbit low Earth orbit as the International Space Station, it will make one revolution in approximately 90 minutes, experiencing light and darkness in that time. If NASA chooses a polar orbit for the Rhodes satellite, it will experience more sunlight.

Why is Rhodes making a spacecraft?

Preparation for the project began a few years ago when Charles Robertson Jr., a Rhodes trustee and alumnus of 1965 — four years before men walked on the moon, Hoffmeister pointed out — encouraged that Rhodes tackle the project by supplying initial funding. (His parents are the namesake on the college’s Robertson Hall, the $34 million science facility unveiled in 2017.) With the help of additional alumni connections, the college has since also brought in support from The Aerospace Corporation. The University of Oklahoma is an academic collaborator.

After faculty discussed the idea, they brought it to students. Hoffmeister, Viano and Mcpherson have backgrounds in the sciences, but none are space scientists. Students involved in the project, through clubs and academic research projects, are learning alongside their professors.

José Pastrana, a recent Rhodes alum who graduated last spring with a computer science degree, is back working on the project as a part time employee. As a programming pair, he and Mcpherson are working on much of the software for RHOK-SAT. Because the project had to go virtual due to the pandemic, Pastrana has also helped get interested students up to speed on what they need to know to dive back into the project once they can more regularly return to the lab.

Rhodes junior Giuliana Hofheins, student co-leader on the project, has spent the last year in part with grant writing applications and the satellite communications element of the RHOKSAT. While she knew she wanted a career in engineering, the project has helped her narrow her interest to aerospace.

“It’s been kind of perfect having this project,” she said. “It’s provided me...an engineering, technical project at a liberal arts school.”

Faculty and students work on an engineering model of the RHOK-SAT, but a different flight model of the spacecraft is what will be launched into space. Over the next year or two, the project group will be developing and testing all the elements of their Cubesat.

“These components that you put on a satellite have to be super robust to handle those (space) conditions,” said Hossmeister, the professor. “And then of course, if something breaks, you can’t go up there and fix it.”

At Rhodes, students in physics and computer science are contributing to the project, but students in arts and English majors have also helped with logo design and project proposals.

As the group is working on the project, project members will also be working with local high school students at White Station, Middle College and East High Schools, teaching them about solar cells and orbits through the NASA initiative.

Somewhat unexpected — though space missions are increasing, there are presently only a few thousand satellites in space, Hoffmeister pointed out — the Cubesat project at Rhodes has been a vehicle for collaboration, teaching even the faculty something new.

“That’s what science does, is it creates knowledge. And so you don’t go into the lab with the answers,” Hoffmeister said. “That’s where you find the answers.”

Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @Ldtestino

JOE RONDONE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Physics faculty member Ann Viano, left, and junior Giuliana Hofheins discuss the “Rhodes’ Cubesat”, a small satellite called RHOK-SAT that is currently being designed and built by a collaborative group of students, faculty, and staff at Rhodes College to fly as an auxiliary payload aboard a rocket launching by NASA.

JOE RONDONE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL Physics faculty member Ann Viano, from left, and students Giuliana Hofheins, Ben Wilson, and Olivia Kaufmann discuss the “Rhodes' Cubesat”, a small satellite called RHOK-SAT that is currently being designed and built by a collaborative group of students, faculty, and staff at Rhodes College to fly as an auxiliary payload aboard a rocket launching by NASA.

JOE RONDONE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL The “Rhodes' Cubesat”, a small satellite called RHOK-SAT, as a nod to the collaboration between Rhodes College and the University of Oklahoma is currently being designed and built by a collaborative group of students, faculty, and physics staff and will fly as an auxiliary payload aboard a rocket launching by NASA.