Kentucky has natural resources beyond coal in the eastern mountains. In fact, it's been mining astroengineering talent for a few years now.
In this KET video, Morehead State University Profs. Ben Malphrus and Roger McNeil talk about the work being done at the university to teach the space sciences, as well as the growing recognition it has received for its expertise in very small spacecraft.
The craft you see on the table is a full-size engineering, or non-flying, model of the Cosmic X-ray Background Nanosatellite, or CXBN, designed to characterize specific energies from the Big Bang's remnant X-ray radiation. On board the flight model is some of the world's most sophisticated X-ray detection hardware.
Spacecraft of this size are almost always boxy "cubesats," which can be mixed and matched like Legos to create satellites of various shapes and sizes. CXBN is an example of a two-unit Cubesat, or 2U. The creator of the Cubesat is professor emeritus at Stanford University, Bob Twiggs.
He's now teaching a new generation of rocket scientists in his role as a professor at Morehead State.
We'll continue to highlight videos from our friends at KET as they are released.
Stay curious.
Wayne