UGA’s Small Satellite Research Lab showcases student-powered space innovation

To mark a major milestone of the fifth anniversary of launching UGA’s first satellite into orbit — and the lab’s 10th anniversary fast approaching in 2026 – the University of Georgia’s Small Satellite Research Lab welcomed UGA President Jere W. Morehead; Marisa Pagnattaro, vice president for instruction and senior vice provost for academic planning; and Anna Stenport, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, for a special visit on Oct. 20 highlighting the lab’s achievements and showcasing its latest missions:

Founded in 2016 by UGA students and faculty, SSRL began with funding from NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Lab to build a small spacecraft. What started as a classroom project quickly grew into a lab managing federally funded and corporate-sponsored projects, including five CubeSat missions. Currently, SSRL includes over 90 undergraduate members — and the team continues to grow.

Since its inception, more than 300 students have been involved in the lab, many of whom have gone on to careers in aerospace and engineering including Caleb Adams, one of the student co-founders of SSRL and now a NASA engineer at Ames Research Center.

The lab maintains active partnerships with NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the nonprofit Let’s Go to Space, Inc. SSRL launched one CubeSat in 2020 and has two more CubeSats in development.

“The Small Satellite Research Lab represents a visionary step forward both in experiential learning and multidisciplinary teamwork that students crave and industry desires,” Stenport said. “That the students and faculty of the lab have succeeded in launching UGA into space encapsulates the scale of the lab’s impact and the capacity of its potential.”

Continue reading...
 

Image: (L-R) Undergraduates Gage Kelley, Nathaniel Leblanc and Nick Dagnino work on installing a camera into the frame of a small satellite inside the clean room as undergraduates Anolita Hirsch and Nektaria Karagiannis work on their laptops in the Small Satellite Research Laboratory. (Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)