by This month, Junipero Serra High School in Gardena had a big crowd to celebrate the achievements of its least traditional team: its pioneering space squad.
Seniors Isaiah Dunn, Christopher Holbert, Travis Leonard, Anderson Pecot and Henry Toler, junior Keith Davie and freshman Jonathan Cruz walked their classmates through the 3D printing experiment they put into orbit on the International Space Station. Meanwhile, their classmates did what they usually do at pep rallies – cheered, asked questions and, being a Catholic school, prayed.
The team members aim to do more than expand the frontier of knowledge. They also expect the school to be the best place to study science.
“We are pioneers,” said 17-year-old Leonard. “We are the founders who started a new path for Serra students.”
The team is on its second experiment conducted in the microgravity conditions of the space station. The current one was launched aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-30 Rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on March 21 and docked with the International Space Station two days later.
The experiment involves injecting a light-activated resin into a 3D printed model of Lego bricks. The resin is then exposed to UV light to harden. The goal is to compare the physical and chemical properties of an object created in space with those of an identical object created on earth.
Kenneth Irvine, the school’s science department chair and the team’s advisor, said the group used a 3D printer on campus to print the parts for the printer that was sent into space. “As our experiment is taking place in space, we are going to be running a parallel experiment down here.”
The point of the project, Holbert said, is to one day enable the space station to 3D print replacements for things that break on board, such as fasteners or tools, rather than having to send them from Earth.
“The goal is to get to a point where we can print 3D reliably in space, saving thousands of dollars per part,” said Holbert.
The cost to launch an item on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has dropped from $10,000 per kilogram in 2009 to somewhere between $1,520 and $2,500 now, according to Georgetown University. But that’s still expensive — even a pair of bolts weighing a tenth of a pound each would cost between $138 and $227 to fly into space. Therefore the interest in a replacement orbit.
“What’s so exciting is that this is a 100% student-driven project that we believe will help NASA and private industry better understand space,” said Serra President John Moran. “Not many other schools, let alone high schools, are contributing to our knowledge of space.”
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Serra is one of nine national high schools, along with Santa Ana Calvary Church, participating in the International Space Station program run through the San José Quest Institute for Quality Education.
The school has received $50,000 in grants from the Ahmanson Foundation to participate in the program, Moran said. The school also benefited from the use of Makers Space, labs, materials and professional guidance from engineers at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, since most of the team members are part of the junior chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers there.
Last year, the space team studied the germination rates of Wisconsin Fast Plants in space.
So far, there has been no word from NASA on how the 3D printing experiment is going.
“We’re all going to be waiting for updates,” said Toler, whose role is to ensure that the experiment can survive the rigors of space travel. “I think there’s something up in space right now that’s great, though.”
What impressed Irvine and Moran about the team was the members’ ability to balance space work with a full range of academic and extracurricular duties.
Holbert, who will head Loyola Marymount in the fall, is president of the chess club, a member of the school’s soccer and gardening teams and the robotics and engineering clubs.
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Leonard, who is deciding between USC and Howard University, plays football and is a member of the Grace, gardening and robotics and coding clubs. He is also a school ambassador.
Toler plays basketball and golf, and Dunn, who will play American football in Italy next year, he is involved in the school’s literary review, is president of the writing club and plays football, soccer and rugby.
Cruz, the lone novelist, is into coding and robotics.
“It’s just an incredible group of people who are very dedicated to themselves and to the work,” Irvine said.
On Monday, state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) honored the space team on the floor of the California Senate in Sacramento.
Bradford noted that Serra is the first inner-city school with a predominantly non-white student body to participate in the International Space Station program.
“This is part of the school’s ongoing efforts to strengthen STEM education for all students, especially underserved students in South Los Angeles,” Bradford said in a statement. recognized by the California State Senate.”
While the team members are proud of what they have accomplished in the space, each of them mentioned the excitement of knowing that they are interested in STEM studies and spaces at Serra and the surrounding communities.
“We have some freshmen coming in next year just because of this program,” Dunn said. “That wasn’t just for football and sports. Now we have students who want to be part of our space program. It’s incredible.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
