It was one small step for man but one giant leap for the Bluegrass State over the weekend.

Kentucky made state history on Saturday, March 27th by launching its first space craft. The Frontier 1 was launched from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and climbed to just over 167 miles in altitude with the help of a Terrier-Improved Malamute NASA rocket. Telemetry indicates the Frontier 1 payload successfully left the atmosphere 72 seconds after it was launched. It later fell back to earth after fulfilling its mission objectives, and burned up upon reentry.

According to the state, it marks the first time Kentucky has ever developed, built and successfully inserted a free-flying spacecraft into space.

“This exciting announcement shows that Kentucky is among the elite in innovation and scientific advancement,” said Gov. Steve Beshear in a news release. “This unique partnership among Kentucky’s higher education institutions, state government and private industry shows that the Commonwealth is a bastion of high-tech, 21st century learning, as well as limitless economic opportunity.”

Kentucky Space is a nonprofit company that designs and develops educational, research and development and entrepreneurial space platforms. It is made up of students and faculty members at the University of Kentucky, Morehead State University, the University of Louisville, Western Kentucky University, Murray State University, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System as well as people from the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium and Belcan.

The goal of Frontier 1 was to test hardware and software that will eventually be flown into space on board KentuckySat 1. KySat 1 is an orbiting satellite that Kentucky Space plans to launch in November 2010. It will include a camera that will transmit pictures back to the Blue Grass state.

KySat 1 will be launched on board NASA’s Taurus XL rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on November 22nd, 2010.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has selected a Kentucky-built satellite, called KySat-1, to fly in its Glory mission in November.

Ky-Sat-1 will fly as part of NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites, or ELaNA, mission., which calls for the launch of small research satellites for universities.
In Kentucky, multiple universities will be represented because KySat-1 is part of Kentucky Space, a nonprofit consortium involved in the design and development of entrepreneurial and educational space platforms.

Lexington, Ky.-based Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. manages the consortium. Membership includes several universities across the state, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Kentucky Space Grant Consortium, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education and Belcan Corp., an engineering and technical services company with operations in Erlanger and Lexington, Ky.

Satellites from Montana University and the University of Colorado also were selected to fly. University of Florida’s satellite was selected as an alternate in case one of the others could not fly.

The satellites are about four inches and weigh no more than 2.2 pounds.

KySat-1 includes a camera that will be used to support a scientific outreach program for Kentucky students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It also has a 2.4-gigahertz industrial, scientific and medical band radio to test high-bandwidth communications.

For more information about KySat-1, visit www.kentuckyspace.com.

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ERLANGER, KY - Workers at Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing headquarters here are used to seeing the latest auto technology, but a year-old project of University of Kentucky students turned plenty of heads Wednesday.

UK's solar car, Gato del Sol III, which finished 11th in last year's North American Solar Challenge race and second in this summer's Formula Sun Grand Prix in Texas, paid its first visit to Toyota's North American manufacturing headquarters.

LEXINGTON, KY - Belcan Corporation, a downtown Lexington firm with 145 employees providing engineering consulting services, is on the verge of a major expansion that could increase its workforce, according to its local manager.

"We're in a growth mode. Unfortunately, I can't announce anything at this point but we've got some very good potential now, even potential that might double our facility size," said Chuck Mix, the General Manager for Belcan's operations in Lexington, Stratford, Conn. and Bozeman, Mont. "We have some deals pending and are within days of hearing about a couple of those contracts."