In the summer of 2010, a group of students and faculty at Salish Kootenai College began the work of designing a CubeSat. A CubeSat is a 10 cm X 10 cm X 10 cm satellite with a mass that does not exceed 1 kg.
Salish Kootenai College’s CubeSat is named Nʷist Q́ʷiq́ʷay in the Salish language and is commonly referred to as BisonSat.
The primary objective of Nʷist Q́ʷiq́ʷay is educational, with a secondary objective of demonstrating the acquisition of targeted 100-meter or better resolution visible light imagery of the Earth from a CubeSat platform.
Nʷist Q́ʷiq́ʷay was launched October 8, 2015 on NASA’s 12th ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosat) mission.
As of February 19, 2021 BisonSat is functional and sending back telemetry. Thanks to all the Ham operators out there who’ve been listening for BisonSat.