Oakwood Engineering Program Celebrates NyanSat Milestones and AMS Grant

Oakwood High School's student engineering program continues to reach exciting new milestones through its work on NyanSat, the school's student-led CubeSat mission expected to fly in early 2027. On April 15, Oakwood junior Adhrit Sinha, sophomore Anaïs Cannieux, and senior Dhruvil Patel delivered a talk at Cal Poly's CubeSat Developer Workshop titled "Development and Ground Validation of a CubeSat Acoustic Sensing Payload." Their presentation focused on one of seven payloads that NyanSat will fly to low Earth orbit. The acoustic sensing payload is designed to tap the side of the spacecraft structure and measure the resulting reverberations. By analyzing those acoustic responses, the system can help determine whether spacecraft deployments have successfully occurred and provide insight into how spacecraft structures age in the space environment. As the team prepares its spacecraft for launch, NyanSat is entering a pre-procurement readiness review with NASA Kennedy Space Center.

Oakwood's engineering program also recently received a grant from the Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium (AMS). Matt Long, a Lockheed Martin Fellow specializing in guidance and controls, presented the award on behalf of AMS during an all-high-school assembly on April 28. He also spoke with students about aerospace careers, spacecraft mechanisms, and the role of AMS in supporting innovation across the field. In addition to presenting the grant, Matt has been generously guiding Oakwood's OUTPOST engineering team as students develop an ambitious space telescope mission concept intended to follow NyanSat. Oakwood is incredibly thankful for the support of Matt Long, the Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium, and the Lockheed Martin Company as they help Oakwood students contribute meaningfully to the future of space exploration.

NyanSat April 2026 News Photo Album