The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is targeting 6:11 p.m. EDT (5:11 p.m. CT) Sunday, Sept. 14, to launch a four-inch, cube-shaped satellite named RHOK-SAT into space. RHOK-SAT is a collaboration between Rhodes College and the University of Oklahoma and will launch aboard NASA’s Northrop Grumman CRS-23. This cargo spacecraft, carried on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and deliver RHOK-SAT and other materials to the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.
Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the NASA website.
The RHOK-SAT project began in 2019, when Dr. Charles W. Robertson Jr., who is a member of the Rhodes Class of 1965 and co-founder of NanoDrop Technologies Inc., initially encouraged Rhodes to develop a proposal to be submitted to NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, and he generously provided funding for the project. The initiative provides U.S. universities, high schools, and nonprofit organizations the opportunity to fly their miniature satellites aboard a rocket as a NASA-sponsored payload. Rhodes announced that its research proposal for RHOK-SAT was selected for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative in the spring of 2021.
RHOK-SAT’s scientific mission is to test novel perovskite photovoltaic cells in the environment of space to determine if this type of cell material shows promise for future lunar and planetary missions. Perovskites have shown enhanced power production with or without direct sunlight when compared to traditional types of solar cells. The Rhodes team was responsible for designing the payload and top-level software of the satellite, while the University of Oklahoma team provided the experimental cells and analysis— ergo, the name RHOK-SAT.
The Rhodes team is led by physics professors Bentley Burnham (program director), Brent Hoffmeister and Ann Viano, and computer science professor Phil Kirlin. Students from various majors and class years have contributed to the design of RHOK-SAT.
The solar cells were fabricated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, under agreement with researchers in the material science department. The University of Oklahoma’s Photovoltaic Materials and Devices Group provided the Rhodes CubeSat with another solar cell, which has been standard use for many years, to compare known technology with the new perovskite cells.
In March 2025, three members of the Rhodes team—Jose Pastrana ’20, Damian Nguyen ’25, and Ryan McCrory ’25—delivered RHOK-SAT to NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston to await its transport to Florida for liftoff.
The wait is over, and once launched, RHOK-SAT is expected to be in orbit for approximately one year, transmitting data to the satellite ground station installed in Rhodes Tower (on campus) for the project.