This Saturday, at 4:19 p.m. Central Daylight Time UND is set to launch the first-ever satellites commissioned in North Dakota.
The pair of satellites, part of UND’s Rendezvous & Operations for Autonomous Docking and Servicing (ROADS) mission, were developed in collaboration with AVS USA, an engineering firm headquartered in upstate New York.
The satellites will be launched into orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California.
According to Ron Fevig, associate professor of Space Studies and the project’s technical leader, a major goal of this mission is to develop UND’s operational capacity in the field.
“The Odegard School conducts lots of operations, whether that’s pilots, UAS or air traffic control,” he said. “We are now trying to develop our satellite operations capabilities.”