St. Francis High’s Knight Skies Program to Launch Student Experiment to the International Space Station
The Sky is No Longer the Limit for St. Francis High School’s Knight Skies Program: St. Francis High School is thrilled to announce that the school’s Knight Skies Program Launch Team is ready to send its science experiment to the International Space Station on SpaceX CRS 31, currently scheduled to depart planet Earth on Wednesday, October 30th.
This impressive milestone is the culmination of a two-year effort led by Mr. Mark Fredette, a veteran teacher, space enthusiast, and the school’s Aviation Club moderator. Last year, Mr. Fredette launched the Knight Skies Program, a unique multidisciplinary educational opportunity for St. Francis students to participate in an experiment design challenge. Ultimately, this competition aimed to propose and develop a winning science experiment that could be conducted by an astronaut on the ISS.
In all, 60 students participated in the competition. Out of those, four teams were selected to move forward with their proposals. These top four experiment designs were presented to a panel of experts who volunteered to score each proposal. The judging panel included Kyle Lewin ‘21, a SFHS alumni currently studying micro-biology, Al Bowers, the former Chief Scientist at NASA Armstrong (retired), Troy Wolman, the Senior Flight Test Engineer at Virgin Galactic, Kathleen Fredette, the STEM Director for iLead Schools in California, and Bill Heinen, St. Francis’ beloved Biology teacher. Ultimately, Team E.coli, a very talented group of sophomore Golden Knights, was selected as the winning team and awarded the coveted opportunity to launch its experiment up to the International Space Station. This team and the other three finalists were recognized at the school’s Academic Awards Assembly last spring.
The students from the winning Team E.coli are now Juniors and make up the program’s Core Mission Team. The Core Mission Team interviewed fellow students to form a larger, cooperative 10-man Launch Team. Together, this capable group worked diligently to fundraise for the costs of delivering the experiment to the ISS via Voyager and helped subsidize a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Kennedy Space Center to watch the SpaceX launch. Additionally, all team members will assist with the post flight analysis and the potential publication of the experiment results.
SFHS Core Mission Team and Launch Team members:
• Alec Heberger ’26 (Team: E.coli)
• Carlos Ferreira Gaxiola ’26 (Team: E.coli)
• Danial Jamshidi ’26 (Team: E.coli)
• Luca Bonnici ’26 (Team: E.coli)
• Robert “Bobby” Milton IV ’26 (Team: E.coli)
• Andrew Tahmazyan ‘25
• Christopher Baghassarian ’26
• Malik Husaini ’26
• Rod Khollesi ’26
• Vaughn Cross ‘26
Their experiment design goal for the mini space lab (Mixstix) is to study the effects of microgravity on bacterial growth and protein synthesis. Having received the small sample of a specific form of E-coli bacteria with a food source in the Mixstix, an astronaut will begin the experiment. 24 hours later, the St. Francis students will start the same experiment with the earthbound control sample. The space-bound Mixstix will remain on the ISS for one month before its return to Earth for comparison with the control sample.
On Thursday, October 10, the Launch Team was joined virtually in the school’s Biology Lab by the mission manager at Voyager Space Explorations along with the team’s expert advisors from Harvard University to implement the successful loading of the Mixstix experiment. Now, the students’ design experiment is ready to be cold-shipped to Voyager Space Explorations. Voyager Space Explorations will be transferring the Mixstix experiment to the targeted delivery vehicle (SpaceX CRS 31), which is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral on October 30th.
Additionally, the Launch Team has partnered with two scientists at Harvard Medical School who will be assisting the team with a portion of the experiment’s post-flight analysis that requires more advanced instrumentation. The Launch Team will also be conducting its own analysis with the assistance of Mr. Heinen. This experimentation in space is innovative because the library of topics studied in microgravity is still very sparse. Most importantly, this incredible opportunity offers a unique learning experience and a creative spark for the students.
St. Francis High School is immensely grateful to all the people and organizations that made this opportunity possible for the Golden Knights. SFHS thanks Dream Up to Space, the STEM education branch of Voyager Space Explorations, with whom the school partnered for the inaugural Knight Skies Program mission. SFHS looks forward to integrating this program into the real-world science experience offered to its students in the years to come. Additionally, it would like to express its gratitude for the support of the school’s administration, the volunteer panel of judges, and all the faculty, staff, and broader St. Francis Family members who encouraged this enterprise. Last but certainly not least, a very special thanks to Mr. Mark Fredette for spearheading this program and bringing this opportunity to St. Francis High School for our students!
St. Francis High School, 200 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada, (818) 790-0325 or visit www.sfhs.net.
