Inside CatSat: the U of A student-led satellite mission
Hands-on space mission teaches students how quick problem solving—not smooth execution—helps prepare them for careers in the space industry.
The CatSat team watches the ascent of the rocket carrying their satellite from the U of A mall on July 3, 2024. Despite being launching from the California coast almost 600 miles away, the rocket's plume became visible from Tucson a few minutes after launch as it reached the upper atmosphere and left Earth's shadow. The image was taken immediately after stage separation, where the spent first stage tumbled away and formed the spiral glow as the second stage continued to reach orbit a few minutes later.
When University of Arizona students designed, built and launched a nanosatellite the size of a large cereal box, they weren't just conducting science — they were learning to run a space mission.
Eight CubeSats built by educational and nonprofit organizations, including the U of A, launched in July 2023 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a commercial rideshare rocket. While most of them have since gone dark, CatSat is still transmitting data and exceeding expectations.
CatSat student engineers Del Spangler and Hilly Paige conduct external testing of a partially assembled CatSat in October 2022.
Courtesy of the CatSat team
It's a result flight director Walter Rahmer attributes not to smooth execution but to everything that didn't go to plan. Rahmer credits the persistence of the small student team working under the leadership of faculty principal investigator and astronomy professor Chris Walker.
"Lack of resources, a stretched-thin team, a nearly catastrophic deployment: all those challenges made it a perfect project for our team," said Rahmer, a doctoral student in optical sciences and current CatSat mission director. "In my view, troubleshooting is a big part of what education is supposed to be about."
The trouble started early. A stuck deployment door on the rideshare rocket left CatSat trapped for 12 days after launch before it apparently sprung free. The team can't fully assess the damage to the spacecraft, but the primary command and control link now operates at 40 times slower than dialup.
"It took three days to receive a single JPEG image. But the satellite was responding — and that was enough for us," Rahmer said.
"Finding success despite all those gaps between expected and actual: that's the real education." — Walter Rahmer
And there's good news: the experimental inflatable antenna — a primary purpose of the mission — has begun appearing in the onboard camera's view, the first sign that it is deploying as intended.
In October 2025, CatSat was named a finalist for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2025 "Rookie of the Year" award.
The following month, the team opened the satellite's transponder to the global amateur radio community. An operator in Vermont became the first outsider to receive a signal, and in April 2026, the team relayed the first-ever contact between two ground stations through the satellite on those frequency bands.
Rahmer says the mission's demands have taught him lessons no coursework could.
"I was surprised that one of the hardest parts of being flight director isn't the hardware," he said. "It's keeping a team of busy students functioning." This is the kind of organizational experience industry is increasingly looking for, he said.
More than 40 students have passed through the CatSat program, many moving directly into graduate school or industry positions. Rahmer himself secured internships at Earth imaging company Planet Labs based largely on his CatSat work.
"This is workforce development that works," he said.
From student mission ops to Orion
Former CatSat flight director Shae Henley, now a Lockheed Martin integration and testing engineer on NASA's Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said the transition from school to a flagship human-spaceflight program was "smoother than expected." She credits her readiness for the NASA job to participating in CatSat, which she called "a full, end-to-end mission."
Henley arrived at the U of A with an interest in space sparked by shadowing a Lockheed Martin engineer in high school. Once on campus, she went looking for substantive research — and found it by cold-emailing Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission, and asking to volunteer. Lauretta connected her first to a small CubeSat collaboration with the University of Nairobi, and later to Chris Walker's CatSat team.
Shae Henley poses with the Space Launch System rocket fully stacked at Kennedy Space Center before the Artemis II mission.
Courtesy of Shae Henley
"That email changed everything," Henley said. "It shows how ignoring your fears and being bold can pay off."
Henley's early months with CatSat were spent listening and learning — absorbing the fundamentals of mission operations, sitting in on meetings, learning how spacecraft communicate. She received a NASA Space Grant internship, and her role expanded to spacecraft integration and testing.
When the satellite failed to deploy as expected after launch, Henley had to deliver the news.
"That early exposure to dealing with real-life issues in space made all the difference." — Shae Henley
"I remember calling the subsystem leads and saying, 'I'm really sorry, but we don't think it deployed,'" she recalled. "I felt terrible."
What followed that disappointment became the most formative experience of her career, she said. CatSat had been designed for a gentle separation, but evidence suggests it was ejected at nearly 100 times the expected speed.
"It was never supposed to survive that," Henley said. "That two-week period taught me more than any class ever could. You learn how fragile missions are, and how much problem-solving skills matter once things go wrong."
Henley now applies those lessons on Orion, NASA's next crewed spacecraft, within the Artemis program.
"That early exposure to dealing with real-life issues in space made all the difference," she said.
A model worth replicating
"Finding success despite all those gaps between expected and actual: that's the real education." — Walter Rahmer
Both Rahmer and Henley hope what CatSat represents becomes standard practice. Rahmer envisions a sustained program with multiple missions running in parallel, building continuity, institutional knowledge and easy entry points for new students.
"Industry is asking for new employees who start on day one with hands-on experience, so I'm optimistic this kind of learning will become commonplace," he said.
Henley's advice to students mirrors her own entry point.
"You don't need experience to start. You just need to reach out, ask questions and get involved early. Be brave," she said.
For Rahmer, CatSat's larger lesson is simple.
"Finding success despite all those gaps between expected and actual: that's the real education," Rahmer said.
Walter Rahmer works in the CatSat conference room, a flame-scarred Wilbur plushie (who hitched a ride on launch hardware) keeping him company. Beside him, an art piece composed of images from the spacecraft sits next to the recognition it won.
Leslie Hawthorne Klingler