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St. Thomas More Cathedral School—High Altitude Camera Test For The MOC Upcoming (Satellite)


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[SatNews] St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia, is making progress on becoming the first elementary school in the world to build, launch and test a satellite.


Students Josie Majowka and Kathryn Howard are pictured as they assemble a ground station antenna.
Photo is courtesy of Melissa Pore, STEM Director and Director of Technology for the school.
Known as the “Mission Possible” program, the school continues to make progress—on November 21, 2013 at 9:00 a.m., the grand opening of the Saint Thomas More Mission Operations Center (MOC) will take place. This facility, located at the school, will be used to control the satellite in space and will receive images captured by the satellite will also serve as the headquarters for the worldwide Remote Mission Operations Center network.

A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held and the Mission Elapsed Time clock will be started. At 10:00 a.m. in the school parking lot, the satellite will be lofted to an altitude of 800 feet by a large balloon. From this altitude, the Earth Observation / Asteroid Detection Camera will take an image which will be received by the MOC. Student Mission Specialists will conduct all of the tests.