Happy New Year; Happy New Satellites!

We are excited to kick off our new trimester and a new year with a tremendous number of student opportunities and some great news: FlipSat-1 has completed integrated testing within the NearSpace Launch TROOP spacecraft and will launch on March 1st on a Falcon-9 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.... 

AND 

WolfSat-1 was selected through the Firefly Aerospace DREAM 2.0 competition to fly aboard their Alpha rocket! This 1U CubeSat will carry our novel bioreactor and investigate a bacteria that can consume polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common ingredient of single use plastic. 

We have adequate funding to support the development of our payload and conduct ground testing with the bacteria. In January we will begin raising another $50,000 (minimum) to complete the funding for the spacecraft bus. 

Several of our subsystem leads met with our student Co-I, Jasmin Schauer last week to complete our kickoff meeting slides and begin planning for our best CubeSat mission yet. Exciting times!

Florida Space Day 2024
Mr. Simmons sent out information about this year's Space Day in Tallahassee, Florida. This annual legislative advocacy opportunity allows students the change to be part of a team and sharing Talking Points on behalf of space companies in our state. 

If you plan to attend, it is important you let Mr. Simmons and Ms. C know asap.  This training course is required through the Thinkific platform for those who have not participated before. Ms. C will be sending out over the holidays, so please plan to devote at least an hour to the course. Teams will be assigned after break

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS --Get Ready to Write!

Early Bird Registration for Busan, South Korea is happening NOW! Mr. Simmons and Ms. C have already reserved a space. Pricing is reduced for students.  In addition to writing abstracts for the 2024 COSPAR Conference, WCDT students will write between Dec and late January to submit their work to the International Astronautical Congress (Oct - Milan, Italy), SmallSat Conference (Aug - Logan, Utah), and the SmallSat Education Conference (Oct - KSC, FL). The world-wide gatherings, IAC and COSPAR, host over 150 unique sessions. You may find a list of the 2024 IAC and COSPAR sessions here. This is a great time to find your voice and develop some publications and speaking opportunities.

January Conferences:

Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE), "The Big Island", January 3-6, 2024. Tyler and Elliott EV will present "A Triadic Education Approach of the Wolfpack CubeSat Development Team."  Rehearsal schedules have been sent via email. 

AIAA Sci Tech: Orlando, Fl. January 8-12, 2024. Greene School students will present Jan 9 withe exception of History paper presenting Jan 12th. The following students have thus far been selected to present on these topics: 

Dylan K: CubeSat VR-A Virtual Reality Application for Small Satellite Education 

Jasmin S: An In-Depth Analysis of Psychological Factors Related to the Success of CubeSat Teams

Gabe M: An Evaluation of Power Sources for Picosatellites 

Kenan S-H, Tyler EV, and Elliot EV, : Educational Benefits of PocketQubes in a Pre-College Setting 

Evan B, Lillie K., and Daniel PL:  Disruptive Education: Use of Emulators and High Altitude Balloons as Precursors to CubeSats in a Middle School Setting. 

Chase B, Lukas R, and Theo O: A History of the ISS

As above, rehearsal dates have been sent via email. 

Both HICE and AIAA SciTech should have completed slides and have practiced with Mr. Simmons and/or Ms.C

IMPORTANT DATES:

December 2023

• 4th-5th PocketQube Conference, Glasgow, Scotland
• 14th AIAA SciTech papers due to Ms. C (NOTICE CHANGE IN DATE to allow time for edits)

January 2024

• 9th AIAA SciTech Conference, Orlando, Florida
• 17th Wolfpack SPACE DAY, Tallahassee, Florida
• 26th COSPAR Abstract deadline to Ms. C. 

February 2024

• 13th Annual National Engineering Banquet, West Palm Beach, Florida
• 15th IAC Abstract deadline to Ms. C. 

STAY IN TOUCH:

• FB Go 2 Space
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter:  @AerospaceAcade1
• PINTEREST: Aerospace and Innovation Academy
• AIA website
  
• Blog

There are a number of upcoming conferences and events in which Wolfpack students may participate. Our focus in January will be creating quality abstracts which will be submitted in the next 30 days.

PODCASTS/VODCASTS and BLOGS

Our podcast has been dropping each week for over a year!  Catch up on any you've missed: "Let's Go to Space: BLUE-SKY Learning" is on Amazon, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please help us out by leaving a review on your preferred platform to help us reach more listeners!

• Episode 133 Inspiring Next Generations with Holly Pascal
  
• Episode 134 Inventing Space with Chet Knoer
• Episode 135 Experimenting in Space with Taylor Peterson
• Minisode 6: SmallSat Edcuation Conference in Review with Kevin Simmons

• Remember, you can watch all podcasts as VODCASTS on our YouTube page here:
• LATEST BLOG by Amanda G. on CubeSat Highlights: A Brief History here: