Zakaria Mahmud, professor at Lake Superior State University , said the school’s new space technician program is expected to provide an “open door” for students ready to enter Michigan’s burgeoning high-tech space industry.“The space industries are booming,” Mahmud said. “Revenue is growing…and there's now quite a good job market.”
In 2021, Axiom Space, owned by Elon Musk’s Space X, as well as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, founded by Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, respectively, all made flights to space, and several other companies have stated that they plan to provide commercial-based space services. LSSU’s two-course certification program will provide students with the key concepts of space operations, including uplink/downlink equipment, orbital mechanics, rocketry, space environment, and satellite engineering.
The program has support from the state – Senator John Damoose and the Michigan Enhancement Grant Department provided the seed money to get the LSSU program up and running, Mahmud said, and he expects more industry partners to come on board once the course is established. “Horizontal launch needs a lot less ground station,” he said. “Because the satellite would be on a B-52 or some sort of airplane, they will be already flying in the sky and then it will launch from there.”Once the carrier is in air – the state has already designated its former Kincheloe Air Force Base in Kinross County as the launch site – LSSU-trained operators will communicate, monitor and operate the craft.
“The communication, and our students’ machine learning expertise will be huge,” he added. “That way they’ll be able to communicate and help the scientific community or contribute to national security.” LSSU is hoping to “hit the ground running” as the industry expands, Mindy McCready, Interim Dean of the College of Innovation and Solutions, told Northern Ontario Business.