![]() About 20 of the RMS students, their families and the adult leaders involved in the RamSat mission were present at the launch. Both cameras were needed to detect areas of regrowth because vegetation is highly reflective in the near-infrared wavelengths and absorptive in the visible wavelengths.Īnother high point was the launch of RamSat on June 3, 2021, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Thornton explained that one camera received light in the visible spectrum and the other received light in both the near-infrared and visible spectrum. It had already lost a tremendous amount of altitude, so our resolution was a lot better than it would have been in its orbit.” We were incredibly lucky to get images of the fire scar area on a nice, clear day over the target area just six days before the satellite completely burned up. He explained that “when we traced back six years through Google Earth imagery, we could see how over time one burn scar did fill in significantly. 5, as RamSat descended closer to Earth and as the Great Smoky Mountains experienced a cloudless day, the miniature satellite’s two cameras enabled the RMS students and their adult leaders to “see burn scars in the Chimneys area” and signs of regrowth of vegetation in other burned areas, Thornton said. 11, 2022, over the Southern Indian Ocean. ![]() Atmospheric drag forced the CubeSat to slow down from its orbital speed of 17,000 miles per hour, leave its original orbit around Earth every 90 minutes, fall toward Earth and burn up in its atmosphere on Oct. Most CubeSats are built by universities and high schools.Ī high point in the RamSat story, the achievement of the research goal, happened only a few days before a low point in RamSat’s journey. RamSat was the only CubeSat built by a middle school that NASA agreed to support and launch (a service valued at $300,000). The research mission of RamSat, which was proposed by two RMS students and approved by NASA, was to use the satellite’s cameras to capture images of a Great Smoky Mountains forest devastated by a 2016 wildfire in a search for signs of regrowth. ![]()
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