Aggie aerospace group monitors student-built satellite.

By Mary Vinnedge '75, Texas A&M Foundation

Texas A&M aerospace engineering students are psyched these days: They’re monitoring their miniature satellite, AggieSat2, through the Riverside ground station in Bryan.

AggieSat2 was released from the space shuttle Endeavour on July 30. The launch aboard Endeavour was the AggieSat Lab program’s first in a four-mission project with NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the University of Texas.

Paired 5-inch-cube satellites, one from each school, will launch for each mission as part of a Johnson Space Center project. The project will give NASA flight information for its unmanned cargo vehicle and space assembly program, said Dr. Helen Reed, the aerospace engineering professor who set up AggieSat Lab in 2005.

The first three missions will test the computers, sensors, communications, a navigation system, control system and NASA-designed global positioning system (GPS) that will be used for the fourth mission. That final mission of the eight-year project aims to dock the universities’ satellites without human control, Reed said.

"I am so very proud of our students and look forward to being able to grow this program for them in the future," Reed said. "Our next launch is targeted for around January 2012, and we would be grateful to anyone who would like to help make these unique experiences possible for our students."

You can follow AggieSat2 throughout its mission via online social networks Twitter and Facebook (www.facebook.com , search for "AggieSat"). More information about the AggieSat Lab is available at www.aggiesat.org.

To learn how you can support aerospace engineering academics at Texas A&M, please contact Jennifer Hester ‘98 at (800) 392-3310.