Members of the Space Force Jr. ROTC project management team, from left, Francisco Enriquez, Theo Ferreira, Jaslynn Bautista, and Jodani Paris-Guzman, welcome Congresswoman Susie Lee, D-Nev., visits students at Durango High School Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. The school is one of 60 schools nationwide to win the recent NASA TechRise Challenge. The students project involves cameras to examine wavelengths in the atmosphere.
Monday, Feb. 20, 2023 | 2 a.m.
The cadets of Durango High School’s Space Force Junior ROTC are sending their smarts to space by way of Washington.
A team of students, who learn science, technology and engineering alongside good citizenship in the Reserve Officer Training Program, crafted experiments to further space and Earth studies by seeing how wavelengths along the electromagnetic spectrum penetrate water vapor in the atmosphere.
To get that data, they submitted their project, called Project Nighthawk, to the NASA TechRise Student Challenge, and then, along with just 59 other student projects nationwide, won the support from NASA to see it through.
The students are spending the rest of the school year working with professional engineers to build the final version of the device that they will attach as a payload onto a NASA-sponsored high-altitude test balloon in May.
A professionally built prototype sits on a classroom counter to guide the students. It’s a clear plastic rectangle, about the size of a loaf of bread, filled with wires and circuits and sensors, and it excites Jodani Paris-Guzman, 17.
“It actually does, and it prepares me too, for what I’m probably gonna do in the future,” said Paris-Guzman, the group’s project manager who plans to study engineering at the Air Force Academy.
So much that is important to today’s human experience relies on electronics, and everybody should know how they work from the inside out, he said.
“It’s good to know how it works, how to set it up,” agreed Theo Ferreira, 16, another team leader. “If I have something and it breaks, I know what a circuit board does. I know how to solder a wire that’s broken.”
Jasylnn Bautista, 15, said she likes to do things bigger than herself, and that includes scientific study like this.
The Durango crew is the only one from Nevada to notch a win in the NASA challenge. The honor is a huge point of pride for their instructor, Chief Master Sgt. Timothy Jordan. Before he even gets out a full word about it, he chuckles happily.
“This makes this job so worth it,” he said as students buzzed around him.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Susie Lee stopped by Durango last week to check on the students’ progress and hand out certificates to the more than 40 students working on Project Nighthawk. She had already given the team a shout out from the Congressional floor.
In turn, the students gave her a signed poster. She said she’d hang it in her D.C. office.
“You are on the cutting edge of careers of the future, and whether you ultimately decide to go into the Space Force, which is part of the Air Force, or not, definitely continue your pursuit of STEM education, whether it’s engineering or math,” Lee told the students leading up the experiment as the rest of the class milled about preparing to learn how to solder wires to circuit boards. “You guys are in the right place at the right time.”
Other winning proposals nationwide evaluate the effects of climate change; protecting humans, electronics, and various materials against radiation; testing machine learning and computing techniques for space technology; and supporting human health on long-duration space missions.
“NASA’s missions of tomorrow are sparked by the accomplishments of the Artemis Generation today in classrooms across America,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, referencing the name NASA uses for its current lunar exploration campaign, in a press release. “Through opportunities like the TechRise Student Challenge, young people are deepening their passion in science and technology, preparing to be the future innovators and pioneers who help humanity soar to new heights and unlock more secrets of the universe.”
On flight day, the payloads will gather data as balloons launch from Arizona and South Dakota and ascend to an altitude of approximately 70,000 feet, where they will float for at least four hours in the stratosphere.
Paris said he knows that water vapor absorbs wavelengths, including but not only visible light waves, but he wants to know more.
“We’re trying to prove how much and where exactly and what specific wavelengths are getting absorbed– maybe at this altitude, they’re absorbing infrared,” he said.
