A 17-year veteran of Sandia National Labs and founder of a Silicon Valley nanotechnology company, teacher Paul McWhorter established his high school’s first Space Program.
Edorado High School sends instrumentation packages, called Eagles, to the edge of space and transmits back temperature, pressure, and GPS data, as well as live video. In all, twenty different data channels are telemetered back to ‘Mission Control’ in the classroom.
Due to technical and regulatory requirements, a high-gain microwave antenna on the ground is needed. A RockBLOCK is used as a back-up system to help the main microwave array maintain a connection, and regain a link if lost.