Student led NASA project prepares to launch advanced star tracking system on a high altitude balloon mission this month

Rochester, New York – A student-built technology designed to help rockets find their way through the stars is about to get another chance to prove itself—this time not on a rocket, but carried high above Earth by a massive NASA balloon.

The project, known as the Cryogenic Star Tracking Attitude Regulation System, or CSTARS, has been in the making for nearly a decade, with teams of students from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) steadily refining the system. Now, under the leadership of astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student Kazuma Noda, the instrument will launch this month aboard the Balloon Optimization Opportunity Platform!, better known as BOOP!

BOOP! may not sound like a traditional space vehicle, but it is giving CSTARS its best shot yet at delivering the performance researchers and students have been striving toward. Unlike short-lived rocket flights, balloons can linger high in the atmosphere for hours at a time, providing a longer window to test new technology in conditions similar to space.

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“I think we fixed the issue we had, and now we want to see if this can track stars again,” said Noda, referring to earlier challenges with CSTARS’ firmware. He noted that flying on a balloon brings clear advantages: costs are far lower than rocket launches, and instead of only eight to ten minutes of observation, BOOP! could extend testing time to as long as four hours.

CSTARS is built to orient rocket payloads by locking onto the faint patterns of stars, essentially giving spacecraft a cosmic compass. Its first mission came on board the sounding rocket experiment CIBER-2, but a glitch in the system’s firmware cut that test short. The balloon flight is designed to give the technology—and the students behind it—a chance at redemption.

The effort has not been the work of a single person but rather a continuous relay of student teams, each building upon the progress of those before. Over the years, undergraduates and graduate students alike have assembled algorithms, electronic systems, and hardware, with guidance from faculty advisers.

“All these algorithms and systems and electronics that we’ve built over the almost ten years in support of CSTARS, we’re finally at the point where it all works,” said Michael Zemcov, associate professor in RIT’s School of Physics and Astronomy. “This is a fun project that has a long history that many students have contributed to over the years.”

For Noda, the project represents both professional growth and personal passion. As an undergraduate in Japan, he worked with sounding rockets through the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment, or CIBER. That early experience hooked him on this field of research and eventually drew him to RIT for graduate study.

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While Zemcov negotiated with NASA to secure CSTARS a place aboard BOOP!, he made sure Noda had full responsibility for the project’s day-to-day leadership. It was both a challenge and an opportunity.

“For a Ph.D. student, the ideal situation is to be given a leadership role,” said Zemcov. “He’s done really well in executing that. We should be giving students these opportunities as much as we possibly can. It’s the best way to learn.”

The work has taken Noda beyond the classroom. Earlier this year he traveled to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to integrate CSTARS onto the gondola that BOOP! will carry aloft. Later, he made the journey to New Mexico, where the balloon is scheduled to launch, giving him front-line experience in managing a real-world NASA mission.

For Zemcov and other faculty mentors, that kind of hands-on involvement is exactly what student-led projects are meant to achieve. As he put it, “There’s no substitute for going out and doing it yourself.”

The upcoming flight represents a rare blend of cutting-edge research and student education. If successful, CSTARS could become a model for how small, university-driven projects make meaningful contributions to space science while training the next generation of researchers and engineers.

And for the many students who have touched the project since its early beginnings, the launch is more than just another test. It’s the culmination of years of trial, error, and persistence—proof that even a student idea can ride on the winds toward the edge of space.