NASA RockSatX

NASA RockSat X provides educational institutions and STEM field students from around the world with the opportunity to design, fabricate, and launch a scientific payload onboard a real NASA rocket. The program, run through the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, is focused on encouraging students to receive real world experience, and develop original scientific experiments that can withstand true spaceflight conditions.

RockSatX poses especially rigorous challenges for students as experiments are exposed to the harsh conditions of spaceflight. Student proposals begin in the fall when collegiate teams pitch their ideas to the NASA selection committee. Over the course of multiple rounds of feedback and review, final proposals are judged for viability and qualifying teams are selected for spots on the NASA rocket. This leads to fabrication and testing in the spring and an ultimate launch in the summer from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Current Project - Autonomous Thermal Observation & Mapping Apparatus for LiDAR Systems (ATOMALiS)

2026 marks College of the Canyons’ return to engineering a half-sized payload (experiment) for the NASA Wallops’ RockSat program.

ATOMALiS is a student-developed idea that aims to collect accurate thermal data that can be used to assess the viability of a Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) system. An example of a LiDAR system is the collision prevention feature of a modern car which allows cars to be detected in front of the vehicle. Students intend to map various objects while on the flight, collect the data, and upon successful return of the payload, run a machine learning algorithm on the data. For redundancy, students are also capturing footage with a camera, allowing the team to get a peek into the beautiful universe we live in and ultimately assess a machine’s ability to detect the deformation of items such as antennae. 

Students are currently awaiting the flight manifest decisions made by Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in late November 2025.

Student Leads

For more information about the NASA RockSatX program at large, visit the NASA RockSatX Official Webpage