Student-built satellites deployed into orbit from the International Space Station
On a quiet Wednesday morning, a small group gathered at Virginia Tech’s Center for Space Science and Engineering Research. Excitedly huddled together around a big screen in a conference room, faculty, staff, and students eagerly awaited the countdown to deployment of the Virginia Cubesat Constellation from the International Space Station.
Virginia Tech’s satellite — the first to be built by undergraduate students and launched into space — along with two satellites from other Virginia universities, were successfully deployed into orbit via the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer at 10:50 a.m. on July 3.
“The deployment is a great success for our students and all of the faculty and staff in the College of Engineering, Space@VT, and the Hume Center, who helped get us to the point where we have a fully Virginia Tech-built satellite in orbit,” said Jonathan Black, aerospace and ocean engineering professor and director of the Aerospace and Ocean Systems Laboratory for the Hume Center for National Security and Technology. “Thanks and congratulations also to our partners across the commonwealth as we hope this is the first of many launches for this team.”
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