Email the quantum communication paper author(s) for more information about the project Sebastian Perdomo Hernandez Zaire Williams
Put together a list of labs that would be interested in having us bring a payload for them (keep track of labs contacted, meeting dates, and meeting links in #general channel in Slack)
Talk to faculty advisor about feasibility of quantum project Emily Aleman Garcia
make sure everyone is set up on gcal Pranav Bala
go through miro diagrams and add anything as needed Pranav Bala
add new exec onto confluence with headshots Pranav Bala
add peoples page with headshots Pranav Bala Ellery McDaniel
make form for mission one name Pranav Bala
figure out onboarding stuff Pranav Bala

Important Team Information

General onboarding materials (such as software installation and CAD instructions, which will be posted soon) can be found in the Onboarding folder
Meeting notes
- General meeting notes are labelled with a date
- Other subteam-specific meeting notes are labeled as "date - subteam" (eg. 11/15/2025 - Electrical)
Subteams
- New subteam! The Science Team is responsible for ensuring that research is occurring correctly and that engineering decisions do not interfere with quality of research
- Task Reports: Tasks are added in meeting notes, and incomplete tasks are shown in the subteam task report with a due date and names of people that are assigned to work on the task. Add tasks to meeting notes by clicking the checkbox icon while editing a page.
- Important subteam decisions: To add DACI decisions, click on the three dots next to “Create”, select Create a DACI, and add relevant information. These decisions show up in the overall DACI register and in the folder for important decisions for the relevant subteam. This will be helpful for future members to have a record of how similar decisions were made in the past, as well as helping to keep people accountable. List Pranav and the subteam lead as the approver. (Subteam leads will be decided soon)
Resources to look at
- NASA Systems Engineering Handbook - SUPER helpful resource for any engineering field!
- LEO Satellite Design
- Space Mission Engineering (found in #resources channel in Slack)

#announcements is the most important channel, please ensure that you have joined it! All other channels are optional but highly recommended to join, especially those that pertain to your subteam.
Current list of channels:
- #announcements
- #ether-communications
- #ether-controls
- #ether-data-management
- #ether-electrical
- #ether-structures
- #ether-systems-engineering
- #ether-testing-manufacturing
- #general
- #memes
- #photo-dump
- #questions
- #random
- #resources
- #social
- #software-help
- #who-said-it
- #wins

Mission Planning: 2025-2026 Mission 1

Detailed descriptions of ideas can be found in the Confluence folder 2025-2026 MISSION 1 -> Brainstorming 1

Study correlation between light pollution and some other variable (eg. population size, temperature, etc.)
Use spectrometer with a thermal camera to measure this
In Maria’s exact words, “light pollution is a little bit boring”, but it would be a neat challenge to incorporate an Earth-facing camera into the satellite. A related idea: correlating gas emissions in an area with wildfires to identify patterns and predict the likelihood of wildfires occurring
Pros:
- Lot of choices for what two variables to study
Cons:
- Sensors are expensive (~$15-20k)
- For our first mission, might be very challenging to incorporate two payloads and managing data from two different sensors
- Prone to error
- Two sensors could limit space and power
Fun side mission idea: Make an MIT sign large enough that the satellite can see it. This could also generate publicity.

Demonstrate quantum communication in space to improve long-range communication for deep-space missions, fast data transfer, and secure information transfer
Either test communicate between one satellite and a ground station or between multiple satellites
Pros:
- Highly relevant emerging research
Cons:
- Very, very technically difficult
- Likely to be very, very expensive
“I think this is an amazing project, but we are not in the right place as a team to do this yet” - Pranav
- Grants depend on prior success, which we don’t have yet
- We can look into feasibility and contact relevant people to learn more information

Talk to nearby labs and build a bus to host other payloads
One of the payloads could be a camera like Maria envisioned or a fun project
Could be a good starter project to help everybody learn the technical knowledge for more complex projects
Could be really good for collaboration with other schools that might have projects that need to be launched
Pros:
- Minimal funding on our end, since the other labs would probably provide the funding
- Size depends on how many payloads we are taking (which we have final decision-making responsibility for)
- Increase publicity and help other labs
Cons:
- Challenging from a systems engineering perspective to manage many different payloads
- Larger size
- “Semi-boring, very safe option, not super exciting” (in Pranav’s words)

Starting next week, each subteam has ~10 minutes to summarize everything that they have accomplished that week at the Saturday meeting
The team split up into subteams and used Miro to work on the systems diagram and identify deliverables, requirements, and interaction with other subteams