Last Sunday, I represented Computer Engineering for the ECE department from the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State University (PSU) during the NACAC National College Fair in downtown Portland.

Because I am a strong believer in the show-and-tell approach—being a visual learner myself and loving to see and touch what we are talking about—I asked my friend and colleague Andrew if we could borrow the OreSat so that, with the other staff and faculty on site, we could use the CubeSat to show how all the engineering fields represented can contribute to one common objective. Mechanical, Structural, Electrical, Environmental, and Computer Engineering all contributed to delivering this little marvel.

In addition to thanking Andrew, the man behind the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS), I want to thank the students who built the satellite and lent it to us for this event. Merci! And I have the pleasure of saying it worked well: many high school students and their parents stopped by, and I saw some future aerospace engineers with their eyes wide open. I especially loved it when the kids held the satellite, looked at the details, and asked questions about that widget or those tape-made antennas—a real pleasure.

OreSat, like PSAS’s other projects—including their LV3 rockets—is open source. So, if you want to jump into it immediately, have a look at: Portland State Aerospace Society · GitHub. If you want to learn more specifically about OreSat, have a look here: OreSat.

I won’t repeat everything you can find about OreSat online, so here’s the super-condensed story in a few lines. But first, if you’re wondering what a CubeSat is, I like the shipping-container analogy and what it did for worldwide shipping: a standard size and format that makes building, transporting, and launching satellites easier. And way cheaper too!

OreSat is a family of small, modular satellites built by PSU students and community members. OreSat0 became Oregon’s first satellite in March 2022, and OreSat0.5 followed in August 2024. Next up is OreSat1, which will study cirrus clouds and send live video from space to receivers Oregon high school students can build themselves! Another amazing, cool project to raise STEM awareness. When the website is back online, you should be able to track the satellite here: mission.oresat.org. In the meantime, feel free to join and/or support PSAS.

Enjoy the pics, and have a nice weekend.

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