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Kentucky to Be the First State to Launch a Satellite

Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Art Jester, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

May 26--FRANKFORT -- Kentucky will become the nation's first state to send a satellite into space -- probably by late 2007 -- in a cooperative venture among state universities and agencies designed to promote education, research and economic development.

The satellite program, announced yesterday at the state Council on Postsecondary Education, could help attract high-tech businesses to what is being touted as "Silicon Holler" near Morehead State University, said Morehead President Wayne Andrews.

Morehead has one of the nation's four bachelor's degree programs in space science and what is regarded as a world-class, 21-meter "dish" for tracking satellites. The school is planning a $16 million space science building and has attracted two space technology companies to the area, Andrews said. He believes the university is poised to become an "incubator" for similar companies.

The consortium of universities and agencies will send up the KentuckySatellite (KySat), which a team of undergraduate and graduate students will design, build, launch and guide through its earth orbits during a life expectancy of about 18 months. Morehead will house the flight's ground operations.

The cube-shaped Pico satellite, weighing less than a kilogram and measuring only 10 centimeters in height, width and depth, will be designed this summer by a six-student team drawn from Morehead State, Murray State and Western Kentucky universities and the universities of Kentucky and Louisville.

Starting this fall, the satellite will be built in engineering facilities at UK, said Jim Lumpp, a UK professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., the program's managing partner, said KySat is scheduled to be launched by late 2007 from a site in Kazakhstan. The satellite will be atop a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile with its warhead removed.

"This is turning swords into plowshares," said Stanford University's Bob Twiggs, an aeronautics and astronautics professor and director of Stanford's Space & Systems Development Laboratory, who attended the announcement.

Kimel said the Russians can do the launch for $40,000, with similar quality and at a drastically lower price than that available in the United States.

The student team will leave June 11 to spend 10 weeks in California's Silicon Valley working on the satellite's design with researchers and students from Stanford's Space & Systems Development Laboratory and at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. Stanford and NASA Ames are partners in the Kentucky mission, along with the Kids Aren't Too Young for Satellites (KatySat) program in Menlo Park, Calif., and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

The Kentucky Virtual University will provide communications links among the partners, which also include the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium, located at WKU, and the Kentucky Engineering Foundation.

The KySat program, expected to cost $375,000 to $400,000, will be funded with state money from the universities and NASA grants, Kimel said. He envisions launching new satellites "with increasing complexity" every 12 to 18 months.

The first satellite will serve mainly as an education tool for Kentucky students, ranging from kindergarten through college. The satellite will have a camera, data storage and a UHF/VHF radio for student and ham radio users.

Tom Layzell, president of the education council, said the KySat program fosters collaboration among the universities, strengthens the state's position in the "knowledge economy" and further opens an "engineering pipeline" by "creating exciting opportunities for students."

Garrett Chandler of Quitman, Texas, a UK master's degree student in electrical engineering, was excited about KySat's emphasis on outreach to K-12 students. "This is important because the second-, third- and fourth-graders today are going to be developing the manned mission to Mars," he said. "The emphasis is not just to launch a satellite but to build a pipeline to K-12."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.)

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