STMSat 1

STMSat 1 [STM]

STMSat 1 (St. Thomas More Satellite 1) is an educational 1U CubeSat built by elementary school students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School.

STMSat 1 is the first satellite to be built and designed entirely by elementary school students, supported by technical advisors from NASA.

The satellite contains an earth observation camera, a transceiver (HAM radio band), power systems, on-board computer, antenna, a plate with signatures of entire mission team, a donor payload and a crucifix blessed by Pope Francis.

The satellite will take pictures every 30 seconds and transmitting them back to the ground. A network of Remote Mission Operations Centers (RMOCs) spans various parts of the U.S. and several countries around the world.

The satellite is to be delivered by a resupply rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) where it is deployed by an ISS NanoRacks launcher into its own orbit to begin capturing images and transmit them back to the schools around the world for research and teaching purposes in math and science.

STMSat 1 was launched in December 2015 onboard of Cygnus CRS-4 to the ISS, were it was deployed into orbit on 16 May 2016 on the ELaNa-9 mission.