Join us for our PSAS open House! Wed April 16th 5:00pm - 9:00pm!!

Mission 1: OreSat Live

Mission 1: OreSat live
(Oregon's very own 400 km long selfie stick)

We wanted to bring a space-based Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) outreach to the entire state of Oregon. Something fun. We like taking selfies. Kids like selfies. So, uh, how about a selfie? But live? From space?

Here's how it works:

Kids build a ground station

High school students will build a hand-held receiver. They can build it from scratch (it is open source after all!) or they can buy a kit being hosted by our partners at Crowd Supply. It should only take a few hours to build from a kit. It's a WiFi receiver, a small computer with a WiFi transmitter, an helical antenna, and some radio chips from our friends at Qorvo. And no, you don't actually need a hard hat to build the ground station. But you know: safety first.

We coordinate a place and time

Kids tell us where they are in Oregon. We tell them when the satellite is going to pass overhead. They choose a time, and we've got a date. With space. Which, frankly, is terrible. You don't want a date with space. Trust us.

So... how does it work? We won't bore you with the details, but just know that while you can't get WiFi in your basement... we can get from space. Yep. WiFi. From space. A terrible idea, until you realize that it actually works. Here are some highlights, but of course, it's all open source, so you can get all the details you want!