A charter school in Rathdrum, Idaho, is headed to space. NASA has picked a team of high school students at STEM Charter Academy to design and build a small research satellite for launch next year. The proposal from the high school’s CubeSat team of 10 students was one of just 20 nanosatellite ideas chosen by NASA to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets with planned launch dates in the next three years. “It’s extremely exciting. We’re just jacked about it,” said Scott Thomson, executive director of STEM Charter Academy, which announced the news Monday. “This is just a tremendous opportunity for these kids. They’ve got basically 12 months to do this.” NASA told the charter school it plans to launch the cube-shaped nanosatellite in June 2017/Scott Maben, SR. More here.

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