BinarX Student Spacecraft Payload Development

The BinarX outreach program aims to enable WA school students to build their own spacecraft payloads to fly in space on future Binar spacecraft. The aims of the program are to inspire and develop the next generation of aerospace and planetary science professionals in our community. To address challenges as the students moved from concepts to developing prototype payloads, we delivered an exciting 10-day school holiday program where students developed and flew simple electronics payloads on their own small model rockets to answer science questions that they posed. The activities and materials are available for others to adapt and reuse within their own community at github.com/BinarX-Curtin/School-Holiday-Program. In 2024, the in-school program has grown to 9 schools and moved to a mix of regularly scheduled in-person and asynchronous sessions. We look forward to discussing the challenges of scaling programs with significant face to face and hands-on components with the community.