▲ 20 r/Spaceexploration+5 crossposts

How to get funding for space hosted payload as high schoolers?

Hey guys, I am part of a high school team in the very early stages of developing a hosted payload intended to make it to space by June 2028 at the latest. The hosted payload will be a custom PCB (probably 50mm x 50mm max) doing a simple tech demo.

We are an independent, currently unsponsored high school team, and need funding to complete this project.

Primarily what we've done was getting reference decisions for hardware families on the custom PCB, and work regarding host selection.

We haven't locked a mission yet, because we don't wanna make a mission with no shot of getting funded and then be at final stages with something ready for space but no money to pay for the slot.

So far, we've looked at general strategies for funding, including crowdfunding websites, government grants, educational grants, corporate sponsorships from businesses benefitting from our mission, and educational discounts from hosts.

We tried looking into getting information regarding funding for cubesat related projects in general, but the only new information we could really find was built in university money or university types of grants.

Our current benefits regarding funding compared to typical include CubeSat teams:

  • Will be able to pay for everything up until final launch slot payment (meaning everything is done payload ready for space ready to be integrated just needs slot payment to the host) with our current money, so any funding we'd need is more of a just pay for this thing that is already at max maturity and ready to go it just needs payment.
  • Our parents have decent financial stability as they are considering paying a decent amount for the final one time payment, with a decent chance of their payments covering the majority to vast majority of the costs.

Assuming the host provides discounts, our estimated budget is around ~90k.

We also found this post regarding another set of high schoolers fundraising for CubeSats and corporations they got money from. Didn't look much into the exact companies yet. CubeSat Funding : r/cubesat

Our main questions are:

  • Any general advice/tips/strategies regarding fundraising for our specific scenario?
  • Any companies that normally fund student stem projects (including high school stem projects) that you'd reccomend and estimations on how much that could raise?
  • Any commercial companies that might benefit from data we obtain that you guys would reccomend as a sponsorship?
  • Any companies whose purpose isn't necessarily funding these types of project but has funded student stem projects before that you guys would reccomend?
  • Any tips in finding these types of companies?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/CantaloupeSwimming77 — 14 days ago

How do I get my teammates to do work?

A team and I are developing a hosted payload to be hosted by a host satellite

Beginning stages are focused heavily on planning, gathering information, and project management.

At first I asked him to do general work as the other person and I were doing a lot of work. He just goes "ok" but never actually does any work. After I assigned several general deadlines, I assigned a very specific deadline, and he spent 5 minutes dumping down random information about the project and didn't even notify us of "finishing."

Then we started giving him specific tasks that he just half-assed. We asked him to spend a couple of hours doing work to get full comprehension, but it's very clear from his work that he just skims information as his information is always barely complete. We've made it clear that the purpose of retaining this info is to make decisions off of it and he's clearly just getting bare minimum info for the purpose of just completing assignments.

He's also incredibly hesitant to do work. We've made a clear policy of reply at least 4 hours between 2pm-10pm, yet he directly does not follow this policy or comes up with a really stupid question just as an excuse for a reply at the fourth hour and then takes another 4 hours to reply. One time he just straight up ignored the message for 2 days and only replies to say he can't do work that day.

It's summer and I know this person pretty well, he has literally nothing else to do.

I tried to give him long term tasks with a clear output that he needs and he finishes days late.

So I tried doing that but with telling him to do 2 hours of work per day and he straight up just doesn't do the 2 hours per day and finishes late.

Plz help me how do I get people to do work or at least put in more effort which he knows very well he isn't putting in when what we have to do is not really something that's a set of clear tasks.

reddit.com
u/CantaloupeSwimming77 — 15 days ago

How do i get my teammates to do work.

STUDENT PROJECT

A team and I are developing a hosted payload to be hosted by a host satellite

Beginning stages are focused heavily on planning, gathering information, and project management.

At first I asked him to do general work as the other person and I were doing a lot of work. He just goes "ok" but never actually does any work. After I assigned several general deadlines, I assigned a very specific deadline, and he spent 5 minutes dumping down random information about the project and didn't even notify us of "finishing."

Then we started giving him specific tasks that he just half-assed. We asked him to spend a couple of hours doing work to get full comprehension, but it's very clear from his work that he just skims information as his information is always barely complete. We've made it clear that the purpose of retaining this info is to make decisions off of it and he's clearly just getting bare minimum info for the purpose of just completing assignments.

He's also incredibly hesitant to do work. We've made a clear policy of reply at least 4 hours between 2pm-10pm, yet he directly does not follow this policy or comes up with a really stupid question just as an excuse for a reply at the fourth hour and then takes another 4 hours to reply. One time he just straight up ignored the message for 2 days and only replies to say he can't do work that day.

It's summer and I know this person pretty well, he has literally nothing else to do.

I tried to give him long term tasks with a clear output that he needs and he finishes days late.

So I tried doing that but with telling him to do 2 hours of work per day and he straight up just doesn't do the 2 hours per day and finishes late.

Plz help me how do I get people to do work or at least put in more effort which he knows very well he isn't putting in when what we have to do is not really something that's a set of clear tasks.

reddit.com
u/CantaloupeSwimming77 — 16 days ago

How do I get my teammates to be productive?

STUDENT PROJECT

A team and I are developing a hosted payload to be hosted by a host satellite

Beginning stages are focused heavily on planning, gathering information, and project management.

At first I asked him to do general work as the other person and I were doing a lot of work. He just goes "ok" but never actually does any work. After I assigned several general deadlines, I assigned a very specific deadline, and he spent 5 minutes dumping down random information about the project and didn't even notify us of "finishing."

Then we started giving him specific tasks that he just half-assed. We asked him to spend a couple of hours doing work to get full comprehension, but it's very clear from his work that he just skims information as his information is always barely complete. We've made it clear that the purpose of retaining this info is to make decisions off of it and he's clearly just getting bare minimum info for the purpose of just completing assignments.

He's also incredibly hesitant to do work. We've made a clear policy of reply at least 4 hours between 2pm-10pm, yet he directly does not follow this policy or comes up with a really stupid question just as an excuse for a reply at the fourth hour and then takes another 4 hours to reply. One time he just straight up ignored the message for 2 days and only replies to say he can't do work that day.

It's summer and I know this person pretty well, he has literally nothing else to do.

I tried to give him long term tasks with a clear output that he needs and he finishes days late.

So I tried doing that but with telling him to do 2 hours of work per day and he straight up just doesn't do the 2 hours per day and finishes late.

Plz help me how do I get people to do work or at least put in more effort which he knows very well he isn't putting in when what we have to do is not really something that's a set of clear tasks.

reddit.com
u/CantaloupeSwimming77 — 16 days ago