It has been an amazing experience with Higher Orbits, and I can’t believe that our experiment launched. It still shocks me that we even designed an experiment to go to space, let alone, that it is actually in space now.
The night before the launch we had a pre-launch dinner with scientists and Astronaut Wendy Lawrence, and on top of that we got to meet the other teams whose experiments went up with ours. It was really cool, to meet the teams in person after only talking in a group chat for so long. We got to eat at the Space Bar which was really cool, and we could even see the rocket with our experiments from the rooftop. We got really cool shirts, polos, and fleeces, and on top of that we got our team mission patches and combined mission patches. It was an amazing once in a lifetime experience.
The launch itself was truly incredible. We got to hang out at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for the afternoon and then we took a charter bus to the viewing area. Before the launch we had a short meeting about the payloads that would be going up to the International Space Station. It was cool to hear about the other experiments going up to the ISS with ours. After the meeting we headed out to the viewing area and watched the countdown clock. Each minute got simultaneously more exciting and scary. I was so excited that our experiment would be launching soon but I was also really worried that the launch would somehow get scrapped and then we wouldn’t be able to come back down to see it launch again. Words cannot describe how amazing it was to see the engines light. I thought about the camp in the summer of 2022 and realized how far we came since the first day of the camp. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life working with Higher Orbits.
Written by Taylor Meilstrup
