Ribeiro 1 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

SSC22-WKV-07

Identifying and Overcoming Challenges in High School CubeSat Programs

Lucas Ribeiro, Zichang Wang, Khoi Dinh, Nicolas Makovnik, Aarush Sivanesan, Kareem Jaber, Nikhil Kalidasu

Thomas Jefferson High School For Science and Technology

6560 Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA 22312; 703-559-5269

lucaszr20@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the various problems high school CubeSat organizations face, as well as their potential 

solutions. We conducted a case study of various high school CubeSat organizations from around the United States,

interviewing them about their mission goals, organizational structure, funding sources, and other relevant 

information. We found that the three most common significant problems faced by these CubeSat teams were a lack

of student training, turnover, and time commitment constraints. By comparison, a lack of funding and access to 

mentors were not expressed as the most significant problems for any of the groups. Teams shared their solution to 

training issues, turnover, and time commitment constraints, which included the utilization of kits, satellite 

simulators, and a more hands-on student training approach. In the future, we hope to expand the scope of this study

to procure enough data to conduct a meaningful statistical analysis.

INTRODUCTION

CubeSats are a standard of Nanosatellite developed by 

Professor Jordi Puig-Suari and Bob Twiggs at the 

California Polytechnic State University in 1999. Due to 

the high development costs associated with the 

development of CubeSats, they were at first mostly led 

by NASA or other international companies.

However, as small satellites become more accessible, 

the number of high school satellite groups with the 

intention of launching their projects is increasing 

exponentially, from only Thomas Jefferson High 

School’s TJ3SAT in 2006 to over 50 programs in 2021

(Gunter 2022). 

Our team recently finished development of the Thomas 

Jefferson Research and Education Vehicle for 

Evaluating Radio Broadcasts (TJREVERB). 

TJREVERB is a 2U CubeSat with the mission of 

testing the signal strength variability of Iridium Short 

Burst Data (SBD) service in Low Earth Orbit using a 

9602N modem and a VHF Automatic Packet Reporting 

System (APRS) backup radio. After TJ3Sat, it is the 

second CubeSat launched by Thomas Jefferson 

students. As members of a high school satellite club 

ourselves, we have found little orientation geared to 

those who hope to begin their own high school satellite 

programs. While there are resources available to 

explain the technical bureaucratic developmental 

process of a CubeSat (NASA 2017), we found that this 

did not include any organizational information 

specifically tailored towards high school teams. 

When high school CubeSat teams do publish their 

research results, their papers almost invariably cover 

the technical aspects of their satellite and mission but

give little focus to the organizational aspect of the team. 

This is true of statistical analyses too. For example, 

(Swartwout 2013) analyzed the relationships between 

launcher design, project organization (e.g. University vs 

Military vs Commercial) and project success, but did 

not cover administrative trends in successful teams, and 

were not focused on the High School level. 

This paper serves to fill this gap, as a snapshot of the 

administrative and logistical practices of CubeSat 

programs throughout the United States. We present 

different case studies from high school CubeSats across 

the United States and analyze their respective technical 

developmental procedures, organizational structure, and 

resource allocation, while identifying benefits and 

drawbacks of each approach.

METHODS

The first step in gathering data was identifying and 

contacting schools and organizations conducting 

satellite projects at the High School level. To do this, 

we searched for news articles about launches from high 

school teams. From there, we researched the teams and 

reached out to them - either from an email on their 

website, through the “send message” function on their 

Facebook, or both. We reached out to a total of 9 teams, 

6 of which responded.

For each school’s satellite club, we conducted an 

interview, asking them a series of questions regarding 

their club’s project profile (i.e satellite kit vs from 
Ribeiro 2 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

scratch, balloon vs orbit, breakthrough research vs 

existing experiment, etc.). Then, we asked about the 

inner workings of each club, with descriptions of their 

training protocols for new members, subsystem and 

leadership divisions, strategies for reaching out to 

mentors, and their outreach, funding, and 

documentation practices. We also gather numerical data 

on these programs, such as project duration (or 

expected duration), club size, and yearly turnover rate, 

when possible.

Other data points include a school profile, asking 

whether career and technical education is offered at 

clubs’ schools, and what laboratory resources are 

available to the clubs. Finally, the data collection 

concludes with information on how the club leaders 

gauge their own success and where they identify places 

where they thought major improvements could have 

been made in their own processes. All interviews were 

recorded with permission. 

Questions asked for all satellite organizations. Followup questions were asked based on the flow of each 

interview: 

How did the group first form?

How did you choose your mission?

What was your mission? 

What proportion of the satellite was bought flight-ready 

versus assembled yourselves?

What were the start and end dates for your project?

Where was the project built? What type of lab 

equipment did you have access to? 

What methods did you use to reach out to and find 

mentors? Was mentorship mostly by parents, teachers, 

outside parties/industry, or a mix? How many mentors 

did you have?

How was the work divided between mentors and 

students?

How was the project funded?

How did you train people to work on the project? 

A problem a few other groups had is that by the time 

they are experienced enough to do meaningful work on 

the satellite, students are already close to graduation -

was this a problem for your group, and if so, how did 

you address it?

How many students worked on the project? Was there a 

smaller core group that did the brunt of the work, if so, 

how many people were in each group?

How was work split/managed between students?

Would you say the project mostly followed a single 

group of kids, or did it cycle through a few main 

groups?

Did most people who join stick with the project?

How did you document work on the satellite?

What are some lessons you learned/ if you did this 

again, what would you do differently?

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

In addition, we conducted the same analysis on our own 

CubeSat program, reaching out to our program’s alumni 

when necessary. This information was then combined 

with the remainder of the interviews.

The people and schools interviewed as part of this 

paper spanned a variety of project types and 

environments. For example, Irvine CubeSat and Bishop 

O'Connell utilized kits, while RamSat, StangSat, 

SilverSat, Blair3Sat, and REVERB did not. The 

resources available to each school also varied: 3 

projects - RamSat, SilverSat, and StangSat, had a close 

association to a local space agency or space research 

site, with multiple students’ parents working at these 

agencies. These varied environments allow us to 

analyze each school’s administrative decisions in the 

context of the resources available to them. Figure 1

shows a map of the teams analyzed.

Figure 1 Locations of Satellite Teams Interviewed

Once interviews are conducted, we extract the core 

information from each interview (Figure 2). We also 

identify the best quotes and lessons and synthesize them 

into a discussion. 
Ribeiro 3 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

RESULTS 

Tables 1-4 summarize the data collected from each 

team for each question asked. * Indicates that the team

has not yet completed a satellite. For these, project 

duration is estimated.

Table 1: CubeSat Teams Interviewed: By School, 

Project Style, and Duration

Team 

Name

Team School Project Type(s) Project 

Duration

Bishop O 

Connell 

CubeSat

Program

Bishop O 

Connell High 

School –

Arlington, VA

ThinSats and 1U 

CubeSats (Kit)

9 months

(Building 

Only) + 1 

year wait 

to launch 

Irvine 

CubeSat

Multiple in the 

Irvine, CA area

1U CubeSats 

(Mentor- Designed 

Kit) 

5-8 

months 

(Idea to 

Launch)

SilverSat Multiple in the 

Silver Spring, 

MD area

1U CubeSat

(Custom designed + 

off-the-shelf 

components)

7 years 

(Idea to 

Launch)* 

RamSat Robertsville 

Middle School –

Oak Ridge, TN

(Custom designed + 

off-the-shelf 

components)

~4 years 

to build + 

1 year of 

operation 

in orbit

StangSat Merritt Island 

High School

1U CubeSat (from 

scratch), in P-POD 

with CalPoly 2U

~9 years, 

test launch 

after 3 

years

BlairSat Montgomery 

Blair High 

School

Small ultra-low 

orbit kit satellite 

(passes through 

ionosphere) 

5 years

(Idea to 

Launch)*

REVERB Thomas 

Jefferson High 

School for 

Science and 

Technology 

2U CubeSat

(Custom designed + 

off-the-shelf 

components)

5 years 

Table 2: CubeSat Teams Interviewed by Club Size 

and Work Split

Team 

Name

Club 

Size 

(Total) 

Club Size

(Core)

Management 

Organization

Work Split

Bishop O 

Connell 

CubeSat

Program

500 6 Subsystems

(Number of 

subsystems

varied 

between 

projects.)

Kit was 

purchased, 

Students 

programmed 

and assembled 

with help from 

mentors 

Irvine 

CubeSat

15-25 15-25 

(Work is 

well 

spread)

6 

Subsystems, 

each done by 

a different

school

Mentors 

designed kit, 

Students 

programmed 

and assembled

SilverSat ~20 8 Subsystems, 

not rigid. 

Mentors 

designed much 

of the satellite 

but building 

and 

programming 

was mostly by 

students.

RamSat 100 

total 

(taking 

elective 

class)

8-12 

(dedicated 

at a time)

Most 

decisions 

made 

collectively 

rather then 

through 

subsystems

Mentors did 

most of the

programming, 

students 

designed and 

built with 

guidance from 

mentors

StangSat 80 over 

9 years

8-12 4 defined 

subsystems, 

merged near 

launch.

Mentors taught

lessons,

answered 

questions,

students did all 

the hands-on 

work

BlairSat 25 8 3 

Subsystems, 

each with 

leads with 

executive 

power.

Students do all 

work hands-on;

mentors are 

mostly there 

for guidance

REVERB 20 8-12 5

Subsystems, 

not rigid. 

Students do all 

work hands-on;

mentors are 

mostly there 

for guidance

Table 3: CubeSat Teams Interviewed, by Mentor 

Sources and Training Strategy

Team 

Name

Mentor Sources Training Strategy 

Bishop O 

Connell 

CubeSat

Program

Teachers, Industry Two-to-three-hour training 

sessions, plus a satellite 

simulator for practice

Irvine 

CubeSat

Teachers, Industry Self-Research from students

SilverSat Parents, Industry Mentors teach classes, students 

learn hands-on during tasks

RamSat Parents, Oak Ridge 

National Labs 

(nearby)

Elective course + Mentor 

lessons

StangSat NASA-provided, 

Industry

Mentors taught theory and 

researched; students did the 

work

BlairSat Teacher (Teacher had 

satellite experience at 

NASA), Industry 

(Defense contractors, 

NASA)

Textbook reading, Jump into 

projects, Microsoft Teams 

conversation history acts as 

documentation, GitHub 

commit messages for 

documentation

REVERB Industry Presentations, Self-Research 

from Students
Ribeiro 4 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

Table 4: CubeSat Teams by Funding Methods and 

Laboratory Resources Available

Team 

Name

Primary Funding

Sources

Resources Available

Bishop O 

Connell 

CubeSat

Program

School provides 

funding

School Lab

Irvine 

CubeSat

CSLI, Industry 

Sponsors, SchoolBased Nonprofit

School Labs, Co-founder has 

background in Satellite 

building

SilverSat CSLI, Industry 

Sponsors

Mentor connections (founders 

are professional engineers at 

NASA Goddard)

RamSat CSLI, ORNL, other 

nearby labs

Oak Ridge National Laboratory 

for CubeSat development, 

Founding group 

StangSat CSLI, Program funded 

by NASA's Launch 

Services Program

Dedicated NASA lab at 

Kennedy Space Center

BlairSat Partially sponsored by 

library

Public library, School lab, 

teacher with CubeSat

experience

REVERB CSLI, School Based 

Nonprofit, Industry 

Sponsors

School Lab

Interview Summaries

SilverSat

SilverSat is an independent satellite program based in 

Silver Spring, Maryland. The program has been run as a 

non-profit since 2016 with a target launch date of Q1 

2024, and the group of students working on the project 

are middle and high school students. Originally, the 

mentors started it as a scouting initiative, but after 

substantial interest from different students around the 

area, they turned it into an entire organization. 

SilverSat launched through the NASA CSLI grant 

program, “CSLI provides CubeSat developers with a 

low-cost pathway to conduct research in space that 

advances NASA's strategic goals in the areas of 

education, science, and technology development. 

Schools, universities, nonprofit organizations, and 

NASA centers and programs can gain hands-on 

experience designing, building, and operating these 

small research satellites.” 

This program is organized by five expert mentors with 

professional backgrounds in engineering at reputable 

organizations such as NASA Goddard and APL. The 

mentors oversee the whole project; they work with 

funding, project planning, and hosting teaching 

sessions. However, SilverSat is very student driven 

with a core team of eight dedicated members, along 

with a total team of about twenty students. 

Before the pandemic, SilverSat met at the Rockville, 

MD Science Center Makerspace, but they have been 

meeting virtually now for about two years on google 

meet; they have recently started meeting in person 

again. “The students were the ones really pushing to be 

meeting in person again. Part of it was that we can do 

things where they’re meeting person and doing, not 

learning, or staring at me lecturing, rather, they're 

building, when they’re sticking parts into breadboards 

and watching them light up.” SilverSat founder David 

Copeland explains. 

Since the organization is made up of students, there is 

the perpetual problem of high turnover rates, whether 

due to students graduating high school and going to 

university or losing interest in the project. This has been 

a real problem for Silver Sat, “I'm sure every high 

school group faces turnover. Either kids are graduating 

or they are no longer interested.” The program has a 

flexible cycle, with some students joining at the 

beginning of middle school and staying with the 

program all throughout the rest of middle and high 

school, and other students joining during high school. 

These students would subdivide further into subsystems 

such as communications, radio, programming, and 

others. “We get the kids involved. [For example], our 

radio lead is doing work on the level of a college 

graduate in an engineering firm.”

The funding strategy of SilverSat is very mentor driven, 

with the mentors being responsible for most of the 

high-level organizational aspect of the project. The 

mentors used their professional connections to reach

sponsors to fund their project.

RamSat

The inspiration behind RamSat’s latest CubeSat was a 

wildfire that occurred in 2016 in the Gatlinburg area. 

They hoped to employ near infrared cameras to 

measure forest recovery not only in Gatlinburg, but also 

throughout the world. However, their project pivoted 

away from this subject and shifted more towards 

studying the effects of solar beta angle (the angle 

between the sun’s rays and the satellite’s orbit) and the 

effects the sun's temperatures can have on the satellite. 

This especially affects the solar panels which are more 

effective when cold and can often be exposed to 

constant sunlight for long durations. They mitigated this 

issue by utilizing magnetorquers to rotate the satellite.

The project started in an elective class, with many 

students researching different aspects of satellite 

operation and mentors giving lessons during school. In 

addition, a small group of 5-12 dedicated members 

showed up to work on the actual satellite on weekends. 

The students led the project, while the mentors guided 
Ribeiro 5 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

them through it, and helped with the more advanced 

aspects such as the flight software. They had finished 

the satellite 3 years later, but, after the pandemic hit, a 

manufacturing flaw in the CPU forced them to rebuild.

As the satellite neared completion and was launched in 

June 2021, the team transitioned towards outreach, 

using that same elective class as a medium through 

which they could teach others about their satellite. And, 

although the research they were attempting wasn’t 

necessarily groundbreaking, this satellite left its mark 

on the STEM community through the students it helped 

educate, and the future engineers it helped inspire. 

The team’s community outreach has also proven 

valuable to their success. They have presented about 

their satellite to numerous nearby institutions, including 

the Oak Ridge National Laboratories. This helped them 

find some of their mentors and helped them get more 

funding outside of the NASA CSLI grant. But these 

benefits were not limited to their project; the attention 

RamSat brought to their high school helped expand the 

STEM program — which subsequently received 

multiple grants that allowed the school to diversify its 

course options and hire experienced instructors. 

StangSat

Based in Merritt Island, Florida, StangSat was the 

second high school CubeSat in space and the first fully 

functional one. Developed in partnership with the 

California Polytechnic State University’s PolySat 

program, it served to test WiFi communication within a 

P-POD deployer. Against regulations at the time, WiFi 

communication between satellites in the same P-POD 

would allow one team to forgo incorporating a 

complicated or expensive radio into their satellite, 

piggybacking off the others instead. The mission’s 

goals meant that it lasted only through the launch phase, 

so the mission was completed once ejected from the PPOD.

The project was conceived and sponsored by NASA’s 

Launch Services Program. Mentors predominantly 

came from NASA, as well. StangSat was led both by its 

NASA mentors as well as student leaders. Throughout 

its lifetime, 80 members worked on the project, with a 

core team of around 12 dedicated members working on 

it at any given moment. Until launch, subsystems were 

well-defined, with four main ones—Robotics, which 

worked on assembly (and had members from up to two 

other schools at times), Programming, Hardware, and a 

dedicated Battery subsystem. 

As a mentor from the Air Force explains, the StangSat 

team let new members ease into their program at their 

own pace, finding it worked well.

“As students graduated, and the new year started, we 

got new students. And they would watch for a little bit. 

It depended on the student, but some jumped right in. 

We had a sophomore who was incredible with 

programming. And he did the coding. And he took 

over. Within a month he was in charge. So,

involvement depended a lot on the student,” project 

faculty leader Tracey Beatovich explained. 

Once in, the team had members learn through 

experience. As former member Maurisa Hughes

explains, having a synergistic relationship between 

mentors teaching and students doing was integral.

“It was mainly our mentors [who kickstarted the 

research process], they did some amount of research. 

And then they shared what they learned with the group, 

and then we all researched it together: learning by 

doing.”

On top of experienced mentors, the team had access to 

a dedicated lab at the Kennedy Space Center, as well as 

onsite vibration and EMI testing facilities. As launch 

neared, the subsystems were merged, with every active 

member doing almost any task needed, regardless of 

their original subsystem. With their successful launch 

and mission, StangSat stands today as a model for other 

high schools willing to start their own program.

StangSat was launched on June 25, 2019.

Blair3sat 

Blair3sat is a student-run CubeSat team at Montgomery 

Blair High School. Their project focuses on collecting 

data from the ionosphere using radio frequency (RF) 

and optics instrumentation. The data will then be used 

to measure and update the ion density of certain regions 

in the ionosphere in real time, allowing scientists on the 

ground to better understand how ions in the ionosphere 

will interfere with radio communication.

The Blair3sat team is divided into two primary 

subsystems: one focusing on the RF instrumentation, 

and the other focusing on the optical instrumentation. 

The RF instrumentation team works to integrate 

satellite communication with ionicons on the ground. 

By comparing the time of sound transfer to a database 

and performing signal processing, the team is able to 

receive a measurement of electron density in the 

ionosphere. The optical instrumentation team works on 

measuring air glow and the density of photons in a 

certain region.

Blair3sat has opted to use a Enduro kit-based cubesat 

for their project, deciding that their time is better spent 

focusing on the experimental aspects of their project. 

“We don’t really want to reinvent the wheel... We 
Ribeiro 6 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

could go out and design our own satellite kit, but 

industry has already spent hundreds of millions of 

dollars developing efficient kits, so we’d rather just 

piggyback off all that innovation and specifically work 

on the instrumentation parts of our mission which are 

unique.” The Blair3sat team is building their optics 

instrumentation from the ground up. Although the team 

is using off-the-shelf RF instrumentation, they are 

writing all the software to integrate with the ionicons

and to perform data processing. 

Blair3sat was founded in 2017, starting off as a small 

club brainstorming ideas. Since then, they have 

expanded in size and in mentorship, and are currently 

finalizing the designs and pipelines of their project. 

Through attending conferences such as SmallSat and 

SPIE, they have been able to obtain mentors both in the 

field of CubeSat engineering and design as well as RF 

and optics tooling. Even with an abundance of 

mentors, the Blair3sat team is still very student driven; 

the mentors primarily help the students with the 

organizational structure of the club and with guiding 

students through difficult experimental design problems 

that they encounter.

To address the turnover and training time issue that 

many high school satellite clubs have, Blair3sat recruits 

mainly freshman and sophomores, sometimes even 

recruiting students straight out of middle school. New 

team members learn both from reading textbooks and 

papers as well as through completing small projects 

which require teamwork and collaboration with more 

knowledgeable members. In this way, new members 

gain both a solid foundation in the theory behind the 

project and crucial skills needed to be a productive 

team member. To document information, the Blair3sat 

team makes use of Microsoft Teams, where 

conversations over text can be saved and searched for 

by future members. The team also makes sure to keep 

effective documentation of their software through 

detailed commit messages. They aim to launch in 

Irvine CubeSat

Irvine CubeSat had a drastically different satellite 

development procedure from the rest of the teams. They 

have successfully launched three satellites and were 

created as an association of 4 high schools in a single 

county, rather than by an individual school. Their 

program is also highly selective - requiring a rigorous 

admissions process with teacher recommendations for 

students who hope to work on the satellite. The 

program was also the fastest high school team to get a 

satellite from design to launch - doing so in 5 months.

As co-founder Kain Sosa explains, this was made 

possible through collaborations with the county and 

local nonprofits.

“We were very, very aggressive. It was October, and I 

had a conversation where I asked my teammate how 

much money needed to be raised. I told him ‘give me 

three months to raise the money’ — it took me three 

weeks. I put a deck together, I put a vision together. 

There was a nonprofit, IPSF (Irvine Public Schools

Foundation), which is a vehicle where they raise money 

for the public-school systems here in Irvine. The school 

system, IPSF, and everybody associated. We jumped on 

it, and the satellite launched the following March.” Sosa 

said.

Through Irvine’s program, students build on a selfdeveloped kit, rather than ordering and designing 

components themselves.

“We have launched several satellites into space [prior to

founding the program], and then we worked backwards 

and made it less complex. We reduced the scope, so 

students focus on the main thing. We created a skeleton 

of a bill of materials, and basically designed the 

CubeSat - there was no design from their part. They just 

assemble it like Lego. That [reduced] the complexity so 

they just have a box to put things into. They overlay the 

right kind of layering and they put in radio and the solar 

panel and different parts – so that made it less 

complex.” Sosa said.

Despite the use of a kit, Sosa believes students still 

learn a lot from the program. 

“[Students] still need to understand the components, 

[they] were also responsible for the programming. All 

we did was provide students a vehicle and path to 

learning. They had to figure it out.”

Sosa sees the program as incredibly successful.

“How would I start a new one? I wouldn't change one 

thing. Not one thing.”

Bishop O’Connell

Bishop O'Connell, like Irvine, used a kit, and were able 

to get their satellite built in a much faster timeframe 

than the rest of the groups: 9 months for building, with 

another year before launch. Unlike Irvine’s program, 

Bishop’s only involves a single school. O Connell’s 

team also does not build exclusively 1U projects, 

having done ThinSat and Balloon Projects before. 

ThinSats, with a dimension of 11.4 by 11.4 by 1.25cm, 

are simpler to build than CubeSats, and are available in 
Ribeiro 7 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

a kit for easy assembly. Melissa Pore is the staff 

sponsor for the satellite team at Bishop O’ Connell, 

“ThinSat was interesting because it was a quick kit, but 

I wasn't responsible for the telemetry setup -- it was 

already decided. I didn’t have to worry as much.” Pore 

said,

On these satellites, Bishop O’Connell’s team places 

customized chips designed for students, called X chips.

As for Bishop O Connell’s club organization, they are 

organized into subsystems, which changed throughout 

their projects, but generally involved Avionics, Flight 

Software, and Payload design. As a training strategy, 

the team uses a satellite simulator, which provides 

students a low-stakes option to get used to working on 

satellites. The satellite simulator also gives students the 

opportunity to have design experience they wouldn’t 

otherwise get in a kit project.

"[With a kit], you're not really doing the engineering. 

But hopefully, [through the simulator], you've already 

modeled that out and prototyped”

To procure mentorship funding for the team, O 

Connell’s team does various presentations at their 

school’s STEM day fair, and encourages parents and 

teachers to reach out to colleagues in the space industry. 

St. Thomas Moore Cathedral School

Note: This project was excluded from our official data 

collection/analysis, as it is not a high school, and did 

not receive a dedicated interview

Melissa Pore, the faculty sponsor for Bishop 

O’Connell’s project, also led an elementary/middle 

school project for those in grade K-8. This project, as 

expected, had heavy mentor involvement, and utilized a 

kit. It was also a ThinSat, and not a CubeSat as the rest 

of the projects featured here. Rather, the purpose of the 

project was largely to introduce younger individuals to 

basic concepts in the world of satellite design.

"The kids didn't do the entire project, but all 400 did a 

full clean suit dress, and a hands-on moment with the 

entire kit with electrostatic discharge. bracelets. We 

showed them how to operate the configuration panel 

and how to use the camera as our tester. For any age, 

students observed if the satellite took a picture or not."

Thomas Jefferson High School - REVERB

Our own CubeSat program was conceived in 2016 with 

the intent to study the effectiveness of various methods 

of radio communication in Low-Earth Orbit. The

original mission plan included a tried-and-true APRS 

radio in addition to experimental Iridium and S-Band 

radios. We designed our satellite entirely ourselves, 

without making use of a kit, instead attempting to 

integrate various off-the-shelf components into a 

complete system.

Over the many years the satellite was in development, 

we experienced many of the same issues as other teams. 

Because of problems with knowledge transfer and lack 

of experience, as well as insufficient access to mentors, 

we made several major changes to our mission design. 

For example, we descoped our S-Band radio and 

magnetorquer as they proved to be too complex, and we 

used Iridium our primary radio instead. Another twist 

came when our original project, evaluating the viability

of Iridium radio from orbit, was done by NASA during 

our development process (Murbach 2020). So, we 

chose a new mission goal: measuring the performance 

of Iridium under passive magnet attitude control

instead.

We also went through several major organizational 

shifts over time. Club applications used to be a huge 

part of our program. Our club was notoriously difficult 

to be accepted into, and the process for getting in 

involved interviews, technical questions, and essay 

responses. However, we learned over time that it was 

far more valuable to have dedicated and passionate 

members than talented members with strong resumés. 

We changed our strategy in recent years away from 

lengthy club applications and towards a more 

decentralized and open model. Our current meetings are 

always open to anybody interested; all a prospective 

member would have to do to become part of the club is 

show up, read documentation, ask questions, and start 

doing work on our satellite.

Our leadership and management structure has followed 

a similar trend as other clubs. Currently, our program 

has one topmost director and individual project 

managers for each CubeSat project we have running. 

Below that, everyone is an equally valued member. 

This decentralized model has allowed for members to 

fluidly engage themselves in whatever aspects of the 

project they are most interested in, as well as gives the 

project manager the authority to assign out backlogged 

tasks that aren’t as appealing—such as writing 

documentation. Members regularly jump between 

working on assembly, software, and electronics, giving 

them a broad range of experiences, and increasing 

opportunities for creative problem solving.

On the problem of knowledge transfer, we as a club had 

to struggle for many years before developing what we 

hope to be a solution. Our past documentation pages 
Ribeiro 8 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

were cluttered, filled with redundancies, and 

unappealing to read. As a result, few students took the 

time to read through old documentation, meaning we 

ended up repeating a large portion of previous years’ 

work when finalizing REVERB. This year, we 

attempted to solve this problem by compiling a clear, 

comprehensive, and readable best practices document 

that explains what a CubeSat is, what the process is for 

building and launching one, and what lessons we 

learned in our experience with REVERB. We do not 

expect any future generations to copy our mission 

design or club structure; rather, it is our hope that future 

generations of students will use this document as a 

foundation for future missions, as well as add to it with 

their own experiences, lessons learned, and 

recommendations. This provides us with a centralized 

method of knowledge compilation. 

Our current program also strongly values outreach. We

regularly engage in programs such as TJ 

Techstravaganza, a school-sponsored activity where 

clubs each have a booth, and the SmallSat conference to

reach more members of our community and share our 

love of aerospace. With REVERB completed and its

launch scheduled for October of 2022, this also gives us 

an opportunity to connect with potential sponsors so 

that we can fund our future CubeSat missions. 

Conferences such as SmallSat also give us the 

opportunity to find more mentors to address the lack of 

experience of incoming high school students.

DISCUSSION: COMMON PROBLEMS FACED 

BY CUBESAT TEAMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

During our analysis of the interviews, we found several 

problems that were common among most if not all the 

high school teams studied. These included resource and 

time constraints, lack of technical knowledge by 

students, and maturity issues. Teams developed 

different methods to address these problems, with 

varying levels of success. 

Lack of Technical Knowledge

One of the defining characteristics of high 

school CubeSat teams is the lack of technical 

knowledge, inherent to the nature of high school teams, 

as high schoolers do not have the expertise given by 

studying engineering, computer science, or orbital 

mechanics at a university level. Especially at a high 

school level, very few people have the knowledge and 

experience necessary to take a project from idea to 

reality. Additionally, the most experienced members 

graduate each year, so lack of technical expertise is a 

persisting issue, even for longer projects. In many 

clubs, by the time students are prepared to do 

meaningful work on the CubeSat, they only have 1-2 

years of High School left, and so the timespan through 

which they can be productive team members is limited. 

This often leads to inefficiency and slows development 

times as members learn and experiment with new 

electronics, languages, or concepts before being able to 

make tangible progress. This also limits CubeSat teams 

in what kinds of projects they can pursue, as specialized 

hardware will be difficult to work with for 

inexperienced students. Ultimately, a lack of experience 

not only limits the electronics a team can use, but also 

the projects they can pursue. Therefore, experience is 

one of the main obstacles for high school CubeSat 

teams. An obvious solution to this, and one which many 

teams take advantage of, are mentors who generally 

have engineering experience in a professional setting. 

However, finding mentors remains a challenge and acts 

as a barrier for prospective teams. Likewise, knowledge 

transfer from more experienced team members to newer 

ones can help mitigate this issue but is also very 

difficult to implement effectively. In addition, if the 

students depend heavily on the mentor for the technical 

expertise required for the project, the project could start

to lose its identity as a “high school built” CubeSat.

Issues with training were addressed in four 

main ways - through strong mentor connections, 

intelligent training protocols, by simplifying the scope 

of projects, and through single-group teams. 

Three of the teams we interviewed: SilverSat, 

RamSat, and StangSat had strong ties to space research 

facilities. Founding members of these groups often had 

family working at these facilities, who were deeply 

invested in their project. For RamSat and StangSat, 

their satellites were built in these space research 

facilities, rather than in a school or public makerspace. 

Because mentors are so well-connected to these teams, 

they were able to give more involved assistance -

perhaps guiding a group of students through a task, 

beyond just answering questions.

Strong mentor connections were also present 

where close association to a space research center did 

not exist, although there was generally less mentor 

involvement (e.g. answering questions rather than 

guiding students step-by-step) in these teams. 

Nevertheless, both types of teams have found success.

To be able to appropriately allow mentors and 

experienced students to share knowledge with the rest 

of the group, teams also developed their own training 

protocols. For some teams, like RamSat, this was in the 

form of an elective class in school, where students 

would learn basic satellite design concepts. Most teams 

followed a variation of the self-research model, for at

least part of their training protocols. With this system, 
Ribeiro 9 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

students were assigned tasks outside of their skill level, 

but would use questions from mentors as well as 

internet resources to attempt to solve the task. Through 

this process, students learn. Some schools also utilized 

tools to facilitate the training process for students 

working on satellites. 

Bishop O’Connell, for example, uses a satellite 

simulator to allow students to train on a lower-stakes 

project. With these simulators, they would design and 

interface electronics on a 3D printed model, allowing 

them to be more prepared for work on the satellite later.

Some teams also turned CubeSats into a less technically 

and logistically complex project. These - namely Irvine 

Bishop O’Connell, and St. Thomas Moore, used kits for 

the bulk of their satellite design. These kits reduce the 

scope of those school’s satellite projects, allowing them 

to focus on programming and experimentation, rather 

than the tedious process of ordering individual 

components and planning how to fit them together. In 

the case of Bishop O Connell, they also chose to pursue 

a simpler project: a ThinSat, instead of a conventional 

CubeSat.

At the same time, the recent rise of kit-based 

satellites raises the question: is this depriving student of 

a valuable learning experience? However, the situation 

is more nuanced than this: kit teams consistently 

produce satellites far more efficiently than others, with 

a project timeframe of months rather than years. This 

means they can involve and educate more students, 

leading to a greater community impact (Faure 2021).

Kain Sosa, co-founder of Irvine CubeSat, addresses

this. “I'm not doing everything for the students, I'm just 

guiding them through a path. 80 or 90 percent of the 

work is still the students”

Finally, one CubeSat team - RamSat, 

eliminated the need to re-train students by opting to 

follow a single group of students, rather than a school. 

When RamSat was first established, the core group of 

students who partook in its development were in 7th 

grade, and the same students continued to work on the 

satellite as they switched to High School. The satellite 

launched when they were in 11th grade. However, this 

isn’t possible for most groups. In RamSat’s case, they 

had access to lab space at the Oak Ridge National

Laboratory. For groups that rely on their school for 

labs, a single-group, long-term satellite project is less 

feasible.

Time Commitment and Resource Constraints

One of the major differences between a commercial 

CubeSat organization and an educational High School 

CubeSat program is time and resource availability. 

Since high school students have many other school and 

extracurricular commitments, such as sports and 

academic work, there is not a lot of time available in 

students’ schedules for a high time commitment project 

such as the development of a CubeSat. Additionally, 

high school CubeSat teams do not have the resources 

and labs to work most effectively. Most teams 

interviewed had to share lab spaces with others, and this 

can lead to non-optimal meeting times, and low 

organizational and developmental efficiency.

The lack of laboratory resources was solved 

through a variety of methods. While most groups were 

able to find lab space via their school, other groups had 

to pursue different solutions. Namely, StangSat and 

RamSat, used a local space research facility to build 

their satellites (Kennedy Space Center and Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory respectively). SilverSat is using a 

local library makerspace for its satellite planning and 

assembly. 

Teams generally solved the time management 

issue through a dedicated core group of students. For all 

teams, they had a group of 5-29 students who would 

prioritize the CubeSat team over other commitments 

and did the brunt of the work for their team. In addition 

to this, StangSat had a program where their own 

students would join a NASA internship over the 

summer, and, as work for this internship, they would 

develop their own satellite project. Effectively, 2-3 

students were able to work on their satellite for 40 

hours/week, with robust mentorship during the summer, 

and this greatly advanced progress on their satellite.

Funding and Mentorship: Unexpected Results

Some aspects of CubeSat club planning that 

we expected to be a challenge were found to not be a 

significant issue in any of the CubeSat clubs. For 

example, none of the teams interviewed described 

having struggled with finding mentors, and funding was 

typically a smaller problem than expected as well. A 

portion of schools interviewed – SilverSat and 

BishopOConnell – attributed this to presentation 

opportunities at SmallSat and similar conferences and 

symposiums, where mentors and companies would 

discover High School CubeSat programs, and in turn 

assist them through funding or mentorship.

DISCUSSION: STUDY PROCEDURES AND 

NEXT STEPS

Finding contact information for satellite teams and then 

receiving a response for our interview requests were 

more difficult than expected. Consequently, this study 

was limited in scope: with data from only 7 schools, it 

was difficult to conduct meaningful statistical analysis. 
Ribeiro 10 36th Annual Small Satellite Conference

Another issue is that of confounding variables. For 

example, the teams that utilized a kit were also the ones 

that had a more hands-on training approach, with 

immersive tasks through satellite simulators and selfresearch. This makes it difficult to control exactly 

where variation in project duration and success stems 

from. Additionally, because data was collected through 

interviews directly with members of satellite teams, our 

research was subject to bias.

However, we feel that this paper does consolidate many 

valuable and creative solutions to issues that CubeSat 

teams face, especially as it relates to student training 

and time constraints. Next steps would include a 

greater-scope study, with more schools and teams 

interviewed. Ideally, a future study should look for 

schools that had almost identical projects in terms of 

scope in style, but with a single key difference, to better 

control for confounding variables. 

Acknowledgments

Contact Information for the individuals interviewed, by 

Organization: 

RamSat-Hudson Reynolds (Student)-

hudsonj.reynolds@gmail.com

Irvine CubeSat - Kain Sosa (Co-Founder) 

ksosa@bilingualinteractive.com

SilverSat - David Copeland (Founder)-

dave@silversat.org

Bishop O’Connell and St. Thomas Moore- Melissa Pore 

(Founder, Teacher)- mpore@bishopoconnell.org

Blair3Sat - Vijay Shanmugan (Student) -

vrswizards2015@gmail.com

StangSat - Tracey Beatovich (Teacher) - 

secretary.gumc@gmail.com

REVERB - Nikhil Kalidasu (Student) -

spaceprogram@tjhsst.edu

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