College of the Desert students assemble and launch a satellite with help from NASA
On Monday, several students from College of the Desert presented a project as part of the NASA on Campus Internship program.
Over the last five weeks, students built and programmed a satellite with help from NASA. They launched it over the Salton Sea to measure the carbon dioxide levels and take other readings.
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"Honestly, it's surreal, like before, saying that I wanted to work at NASA seemed like a very absurd, weird, nonachieving dream. Like I wouldn't ever imagine myself to be part of this type of opportunities," Grecia Paola Siono Guitierrez told Telemundo 15's Marco Revuelta.
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Students are now analyzing the data and the class's professor says that they found high levels of CO2 over the Salton Sea.
"We had to program a lot of sensors, one of them was carbon dioxide, which tells us how the pollution is above the Salton Sea," Guitierrez said.
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The students deployed the small satellite near Niland and it spun for a total of three hours.
The findings of showed that the carbon dioxide levels above the Salton Sea are high.
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COD officials said it’s one of five colleges in the country that received a special grant to develop their stem courses and engage minority students.
"It was a very interesting experience for me to be honest, I had never done anything like this in my whole life since I came to the United States," said Josue Manuel Garcia Gonzalez.
The challenge has inspired the group of students to continue pursuing their dreams.
"Now thanks to these opportunities I feel a little more confident and if I think it still works out I will be there working for NASA," Guitierrez said.