NMTSat is a student-built satellite built by undergraduate and graduates students primarily from New Mexico Tech. NMTSat is designed to operate five sensors in four experiments in space for three months of data collection. The experiments will provide data on Earth’s magnetic field and high altitude plasma density, will take atmospheric weather measurements, and include an optical beacon experiment. Approximately 50 students have contributed to NMTSat and its design, not including the students and groups who have developed the science instruments. The instruments have been contributed by New Mexico Tech, Turabo University in Puerto Rico, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Atmospheric and Space Technology Research Associates (ASTRA) in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Anders M. Jorgensen, associate professor at New Mexico Tech, is the principal investigator, and Dr. Hien Vo from Vietnamese-German University in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh University is a co-investigator. NMTSat is funded by the New Mexico NASA EPSCoR program as well as New Mexico Tech.
Ten CubeSats on the Rocket Lab flight are launching as the 19th Educational Launch of NanoSatellites (ELaNa) mission through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative.