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State Press - ASU's Phoenix CubeSat Satellite launched into orbit

By: Danya Gainor | Published: Feb. 24, 2020

The ASU Phoenix CubeSat team successfully launched its satellite from the International Space Station on Feb. 19, marking one of the goals in a years-long project by the University.

After more than four months of sitting aboard the International Space Station, the spacecraft is now in low orbit close to where it was launched.

Sarah Rogers, project manager of the Phoenix CubeSat and an aerospace engineering graduate student, said the CubeSat was launched from the ISS from a deployer pod and, upon command, was pushed into space using a spring.

Each CubeSat was deployed within an hour and a half of each other to ensure there was enough space between them, Rogers said.

After it was launched into orbit, the Phoenix team successfully completed their first task, which was hearing the radio waves of the satellite from a ground station.

Now they are in the operations phase, where they will gather as much information as they can and make sure everything is functioning properly. Rogers said this phase is incredibly "stressful and tricky" because the team has such a short window of communication with the satellite.

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KJZZ - ASU Mini-Satellite To Launch From ISS Wednesday

By: Nicholas Gerbis | Published: 2/18/2020

Arizona State University plans to launch a small, NASA-funded research satellite from the International Space Station on Wednesday.

ASU rocketed the CubeSat to the ISS aboard a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket in November.

Known as Phoenix, the bread-loaf-sized craft will use an off-the-shelf infrared camera to study the urban heat island in seven U.S. cities, including Phoenix.

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12 News - AtoZ 60: ASU student team sends satellite to space

by Colleen Sikora | Published: Dec. 11, 2019

A student-organized team at ASU has built a satellite and sent it into space! Click the link to view the coverage from 12 News' AtoZ 60 segmet. 

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ABC 15 - Arizona State University students design satellite to research Urban Heat Island

By: Jorge Torres | Published: 11/22/2019
TEMPE, AZ — On November 2, the Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket blasted into space.

Its destination: the International Space Station. The rocket is carrying a payload made by students at Arizona State University and funded in part by a grant from NASA.

The payload is a cube satellite, or CubeSat, named “Phoenix.” It’s roughly the size of a loaf of bread, but with far more computing power than the space technologies of years past.

The students behind it are ready to test their capabilities after several years of development.

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State Press - ASU student-led team sends "Phoenix" satellite to space

By Wyatt Myskow | Published: Nov. 13, 2019

On Nov. 2, the ASU student-built satellite "Phoenix" was one of seven student-made CubeSats launched into space by NASA aboard a rocket.

The team's CubeSat has a specific goal in mind, to capture thermal imaging of multiple cities to study the Urban Heat Island Effect or the rise in temperature in an area due to human structures and activities.

Phoenix is currently at the International Space Station awaiting its deployment and then will collect data for six to eight months. 

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KJZZ - ASU Students Launch NASA-Funded CubeSat To Study Urban Heat Island

By Nicholas Gerbis | Published: Nov. 11, 2019

Students from Arizona State University have launched a small, NASA-funded research satellite to study the urban heat island in seven U.S. cities, including Phoenix.

The Phoenix CubeSat is one of seven nanosatellites selected through NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, which supports projects designed, built and operated by students, teachers and faculty, as well as NASA centers and nonprofit organizations.

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AZ Central - Satellite built by students soars to space on mission to map heat in Phoenix, other cities

By: Ian James | Published: Nov. 8, 2019 

As the countdown began at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, a crowd of engineers and scientists stood on bleachers in the sun, looking out across a grassy field and wetlands at a rocket on the launchpad. 

Mission control announced: “T-minus 10, 9, 8…” The onlookers joined in, counting loudly: “3, 2, 1.”

Smoke billowed from the launchpad and the rocket rose atop a column of white fire. 

“Liftoff of Antares,” the voice from mission control said, and the crowd whooped and cheered.

On the bleachers, a group of nine young engineers and computer scientists watched the rocket until it disappeared into the blue sky. They hugged each other, elated at their achievement.

The group, all of them students or recent graduates of Arizona State University, built a miniature research satellite named Phoenix that launched into space aboard an Antares rocket headed for the International Space Station. The students’ creation weighs just 8.6 pounds and is about the size of a loaf of bread — 12 inches long by 4 inches wide. 

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Cronkite News - Star students: ASU team watches as its project is launched into orbit

By Harrison Mantas, | Published: Nov. 4, 2019

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. – A concussive boom radiated out from the launch pad at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility as nine Arizona State University students watched four years of their work ascend into space Saturday.

“I kind of thought my head would be like a jumble of internal screaming,” said Sarah Rogers, the project manager for the ASU student team. But when the launch came, she said, “My mind was very clear, because you’re just there in the moment sharing it with everybody.”

The students’ project was one of seven so-called CubeSats that were packed into the Cygnus spacecraft as part of a resupply mission to the International Space Station. All seven of the microsatellites launched Saturday were produced by student teams at schools across the U.S.

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State Press - Starry-eyed ASU students create satellite to better understand climate change

By Katelyn Reinhart | Published: Sept. 17, 2019

ASU students are shooting for the stars with a satellite set to launch this fall in an effort to better understand how urban areas impact climate change.

The satellite was the collective effort of dozens of students and countless hours of labor. The final result came to life in a CubeSat named Phoenix that uses infrared remote sensing to monitor how city structures cause a rise in surface temperature.

“The materials used in many cities like asphalt and concrete absorb heat and that heat gets trapped, which raises the temperature,” Sarah Rogers, project manager and graduate student in aerospace engineering, said. “Phoenix is studying how the structure of land areas leads to that increase, and then decrease, in temperature.” 

The impact of urban developments on temperature change is called the urban heat island effect, and plays a large role in climate change, Rogers said. 

The satellite will fly over population-dense cities including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Baltimore. 

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3TV/CBS5 News - ASU students create miniature space satellite that can track climate change

By: Ryan Simms | Published: Sept. 4, 2019

Student scientists created a special satellite that can eventually help track things like a city’s thermal temperature and climate change.

Standing only a foot tall, the cubed shaped, shiny satellite could be the future to understanding temperature and climate on earth.

All of it is made possible by a group of inspiring Arizona State University students.

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ASU Now - Mini-spacecraft built by ASU students will study urban heat island effect

By: Robert Burnham | Published: Aug. 27, 2019

If all goes as planned, one day this October a spacecraft the size of jumbo loaf of bread will leave from Wallops, Virginia, packed aboard a cargo rocket bound for the International Space Station.

The spacecraft is a cubesat named Phoenix, and it is the creation of more than 100 science and engineering students, faculty and researchers at Arizona State University.

On Aug. 18, the Phoenix spacecraft was hand-delivered by the student team to Nanoracks, a launch integrator, at their facility in Houston. There it underwent final tests and preparations for its launch to the Space Station, planned for Oct. 21, 2019. After it arrives at the Space Station, Phoenix will be sent into low-Earth orbit sometime early next year.

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KTAR News - Hot topic: Arizona State University students to explore local effects on climate

By: Mike Sackley | Published: May 11, 2016

PHOENIX — Cities like Phoenix trap quite a bit of heat during the summer and, thanks to a little help from NASA, a group of Arizona State University students are investigating just exactly how that happens.

NASA is providing the university with a $200,000 grant, which will allow ASU undergraduate students to send a satellite into space with thermal imaging technology.

“The satellite will help us to learn more about Phoenix and its local effect on the climate here in a process called urban heat island, which is that the city gets hotter than its surrounding environment,” said Judd Bowman, associate professor at ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.

He said cities like Phoenix trap heat and overnight temperatures stay a lot warmer than the surrounding desert environment. Once the satellite is launched into orbit, it will fly over Phoenix twice a data, measuring the heat data coming from the city....

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NASA selects ASU undergraduate 'CubeSat' project to measure Phoenix urban heat islands

By: Karin Valentine | Published: May 6, 2016

NASA has selected an Arizona State University undergraduate student team for a $200,000 grant to conduct hands-on flight research, through its NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Student Instrument Program (USIP).   

The project, called “Phoenix,” is to design and build a small satellite, the size of a small loaf of bread, called a “3U CubeSat.” The satellite will use thermal infrared imaging to investigate how human activity and weather create urban heat islands around Phoenix and several other cities...

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Conklin Radio - Phoenix Mission

(Episode 37) — Sarah Rogers and Jaime Sanchez de la Vega are officers in the Sun Devil Satellite Laboratory at Arizona State University. As undergraduates, they’re leading a team of students that will be building, launching and operating the Phoenix Mission. They’re goal is to study thermal emissions of urban areas from space.

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