Four University of Hawaiʻi Maui College students are participating in a global mission to send 500 small satellites to the moon by 2023.
Associate Professor Jung Park and electronic and computer engineering technology students Angelica Juarez, Delaun Prentice, Tishri Prentice and Christian Falcon recently returned from a four-day workshop called the Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
GLEE is a mission to the surface of the Moon that will conduct science and test technology with hundreds of five-gram satellites called “LunaSats” built by students around the world. The workshop was split into 12 modules that introduced the GLEE 2023 mission and analyzed every individual component of the satellites. It concluded with each team creating a unique science mission that will be performed on the Moon.
“The GLEE workshop was incredibly inspiring and introduced our teams to a whole world of programming, circuits and sensors, and their applications on our planet and in Space,” said Falcon. “I am grateful to have been a part of such an informative hands-on workshop, where we’ve been inspired to expand our knowledge in engineering.”
The workshop was organized and led by undergraduate students from the University of Colorado who guided participants in testing the first iteration of LunaSat production. Almost 40 students from universities and colleges across the country participated and formed 19 teams.
Park said that he and the UH Maui College students enjoyed sharing their love for astronomy and space exploration with dozens of like-minded students and faculty. They are looking forward to joining the worldwide workshop in April 2022.
“I loved meeting other students from around the county and working with my team,” said Juarez. “I feel that I learned a lot about coding and about different sensors and I’m excited to join the workshop again in April and hope to encourage others to join as well.”
The Hawaiʻi Space Grant Consortium sponsored the bulk of the workshop trip, with additional support from the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.
