In 2001 and 2002 Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar Dr. Ravinder Batia and I mentored a group of talented high school students from Littlerock High School, Antelope Valley, CA.

Click here to view a video of the final project design review conducted by the students and overseen by a team of Caltech scientists and NASA JPL engineers or here to see a video interview with Dr. Brian Keating, broadcast by Los Angeles' channel 5 KTLA The WB.

The students were divided into teams responsible for science payload, communications, navigation (using the Satellite Toolkit software - an industry standard orbital dynamics package.)

We based our project on NASA's TOMS satellite, which was designed and launched to measure atmospheric ozone. http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/

 

Ravinder Bhatia and Brian Keating help
students display their satellite mock-up.
 

A little help from Caltech friends
 

Last fall, 32 students at Littlerock High School, east of Lancaster, weren’t thinking about their new textbooks and teachers. Instead they were focused on the satellite they had to finish building before June.
 

With the help of Caltech postdoctoral scholars. the students designed and built a satellite mock-up that, if deployed, would observe stratospheric ozone depletion in the northern hemisphere over a three-year period.
 

The students gave a presentation to Caltech faculty members and researchers, JPL engineers, and a TRW engineer in Beckman Institute auditorium on May 24. They presented their mission design and displayed the satellite mock-up for inspection. The students, mostly juniors and seniors plus a few sophomores, come from economically disadvantaged homes, and are taking astronomy and chemistry classes taught by Lee Syer.
Bhatia, a postdoctoral scholar in observational cosmology, has advised the students on the technical and managerial aspects of the project, which was built at Littlerock High and in Caltech’s physics machine shop.

Since October he has gone to the school about once a month, accompanied by postdoctoral scholar Brian Keating and physics machine shop supervisor Ricardo Paniagua. Bhatia also has arranged tours of JPL and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory for the students. The goal was to give the students real-world problems and encourage them to discover solutions on their own, as opposed to lecturing to them.

The students gained an understanding of the complexities of satellite telemetry, payload, and launch, as well as thermal, mechanical, and electrical design. They now have substantial experience in graphic design, editing, making presentations, and time management. “They’ve had to do so much work on this on top of all their other studies,” Bhatia said. “It has definitely inspired a lot of them to pursue their careers, whether it is in science or the arts. The main thing for me has been to see them grow in confidence and see what they really can create if given the opportunity and a little encouragement.”