University of Hawaii students, engineers and faculty are building a satellite that will be controlled by UH students on the ground and will serve as the key payload on a rocket lifting off from Kauai’s Barking Sands in September 2013.

UH’s $3 million commitment for what’s hoped to be a series of satellite launches from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility represents a concept that’s both relatively cheap and simple — and involves a life-size version of the Estes toy rockets that generations of schoolchildren have launched onto neighbors’ rooftops.

"Simple is better," said Luke Flynn, director of the 5-year-old, UH-based Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory. "If you had an Estes Alpha Rocket, it will look exactly like this."

The 54-foot, three-stage rocket under development by Sandia National Laboratories even launches off of a rail that keeps it aimed at just the right angle, just like the miniature versions.

Depending on the time of day, the rocket contrail might be visible from Dillingham Field on Oahu’s North Shore.

Other U.S. universities — including a different UH engineering team — have developed satellites designed to ride aboard NASA and other rockets.

But Flynn and his colleagues last week struggled to identify another satellite and rocket program that has undergrad and graduate students playing such critical roles.

The project will launch the first of UH’s 110-pound Hiaka­Sat satellites — "hiaka" means "to recite legends or fabulous stories" — 320 miles into low-Earth orbit, but higher than even the International Space Station, at 220-240 miles, to avoid a collision.

It will involve partners ranging from the U.S. Department of Defense to rocket motor builder Aerojet Inc.

The bulk of the cost of the first launch — $30 million to $35 million — will come from the Department of Defense’s Operationally Responsive Space Office, based at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

For UH, Flynn said, "One of the reasons it’s exciting is because it’s relatively inexpensive. I don’t think we could put something up if it (the UH cost) was $10 (million) or $12 million."

The rocket launch will be controlled out of the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Ten minutes after launch, Hiaka­Sat will deploy and spend the next one to two years taking pictures of Earth through cameras so small that they can fit inside a tennis ball can.

They’ll transmit images back that will provide data on global warming, ocean temperatures, coral bleaching, volcanoes and a whole host of issues that affect Hawaii and the rest of the world, Flynn said.

Controlling the Hiaka­Sat portion of the mission will be UH students using five desktop Dell computers inside Room 527 of UH-Manoa’s Pacific Ocean Science and Technology building.

UH-Manoa mission control students will then coordinate with students at UH’s Kauai Community College, who will transmit commands for Hiaka­Sat to take pictures of Earth for a wide range of environmental applications.

Mission control students also will communicate with UH students at Hono­lulu Community College, who will receive pictures and other data from Hiaka­Sat.

Once HiakaSat settles into low-Earth orbit, it will spit out 13 smaller "Cube­Sat" satellites on behalf of a wide range of government and private interests that could each pay $12 million to $15 million and collectively cover the costs for future launches, Flynn said.

"We can do science experiments, and at the same time we might have some companies that want to fly new electronics and computers into space and they’ll pay for the whole mission," Flynn said.

UH scientists would benefit by being allowed free research time on future Hiaka­Sat satellites, said Eric Pilger, the project’s lead software engineer.

"All of our PIs (principal investigators) get opportunities to launch things, and we get opportunities to test things," Pilger said. "At that level it’s invaluable."

Both the HiakaSat and Cube­Sat satellites are designed to fall to Earth after their orbits decay after a year or so, then burn up during re-entry.

Support from Hawaii’s congressional delegation, particularly from U.S. Sen. Daniel Ino­uye, resulted in more than $40 million for the program, said Flynn.

In an emailed statement, Ino­uye said, "It was once fantasy to suggest there would come a time when we would develop and launch satellites into orbit from Hawaii. But thanks to the hard work of the students and faculty at the University of Hawaii, federal investments and the support of the military, Hawaii is now at the forefront of such efforts. Innovative programs like this bring together students and scientists from all islands and around the world so that they may collaborate on small satellite research and development. These cutting-edge endeavors are critical to our national defense and instill our students and our state with a sense of pride while creating jobs and fulfilling our desire to explore the final frontier."

For UH-Manoa students such as Amber Imai, a 23-year-old electrical engineering senior from Hilo, working on the project represents the highlight of her young career.

"I thought it was amazing when I heard about it," said Imai, the only female student working on Hiaka­Sat, "and I really wanted to be involved in it."

Imai plans to pursue her master’s degree at UH while hoping to make connections through the Hiaka­Sat project that could lead to internships — and maybe even jobs — with aerospace and engineering companies.

Eventually, though, Imai hopes to return to Hawaii island to put her space and engineering skills to work on the telescopes atop Mauna Kea.

The future — for both her and Hiaka­Sat — Imai said, "is pretty exciting."