KatoLaunchSquad

Since January of this year, the Kato Launch Squad team has worked on the SLED, logos, data analysis, coding, and reaching out to the community to share the exciting opportunity that the team has been given. After many hours were spent on drafting concepts for the SLED, a final design was chosen and put together by late February. The coding process was also a difficult task, as the coding determined when and how the SLED would autonomously launch. However, we were able to quickly recover after focused brainstorming and problem-solving brought us to a solution. The team also persevered through any trials that crossed our paths, such as modifying the SLED’s satellite release system, which has been nicknamed the Cradle Stopping Mechanism (CSM). On February 28th, a conference call was held between the Kato Launch Squad team and a select NASA mentor to confirm design choices and finalize the presentation for the following day. On March 1st, Kato Launch Squad presented our entire plan ...

Our work has arrive at NASA and is ready for us!

Our box has left the building.  Its on its way to NASA to meet us there soon!

Kato Launch Squad is a team made up of several students from both Mankato East and Mankato West High Schools, in Mankato, MN. We are one of ten teams selected from across the nation to participate in NASA’s Microgravity University for Educators. In March, four selected students and two educators will travel to Johnson Space Center to test the Satellite Launching Experimental Device (SLED) we have built, while the rest of the team will be staying back at HQ to support the team from home. While there, we will have one goal: that is to successfully shoot a mock satellite, and make it into a moving target! Here is a Twitter photo of the team testing our system in the lobby at West.

The team met to work from 1:30 - 5PM today, Sunday March 4th. The writing team updated blog, published logo, and updated social media. We are on social media in several places! Facebook: www.facebook.com/KatoLaunchSquad/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/KatoLaunchSquad Twitter: www.twitter.com/KatoLaunchSquad The building team mounted electronics on SLED. We all ran test runs to discover trigger settings. The team modified satellite holder/release system.

Today we met together virtually with students from both schools.  Our Mentor Mike joined us to provide some useful suggestions! The team finalized our presentation that will share with NASA tomorrow evening. This is to provide NASA with our plan for outreach and a look at what we have created so far. The team logo is finished--way to go Emily!

We met Sunday to work for several hours. The challenge is to use the materials supplied by NASA to make up 80% of our device... The build team is refining the design to use NASA supplied materials. A basic framework has successfully been created today. The initial trigger mechanism has been designed and installed on SLED. We found a motor to use to drive the trigger successfully. ON Monday, the 29th, the t rigger mechanism successfully tested for the first time! That was exciting!