From Ben F, Year 6 teacher

It is Rocket Science

It's been a busy few weeks in year 6 as we quickly finish up the last of the curriculum before heading straight into High School Practice for weeks 7 and 8. Two weeks ago the Year Sixes took part in their final Arts Festival Performance and here to tell us all about it are 2 of the stars who guided us through the many parties (performances) Ollie, Mira and Melanie.

In Performing Arts we started to work on a play for the grades 5 and 6. Each class had a scene. The scenes were different types of parties ranging from energetic dance parties to posh soirées. The main characters, Ollie, Melanie and Mira are 12 years old now and don’t know what type of parties they should have. They are in the stage of being a kid and nearly a teenager. So at this stage they don’t know what they should do for birthday parties. Should they go to a trampoline park or just go out with friends. They journey from party to party learning how to be responsible, inclusive, sagacious and ethical. This is a quick summary of the 6 plays for Dude where’s my party.

6A - Retro Party

6B - Gender Reveal Party

6D - Graduation Party

6E & 6F Winter Solstice Party

All three of us, Ollie, Mira and I were all nervous, even if we denied we were. But being nervous meant we had expectations and a drive to do well, as our drama teacher told us the week after the play. Towards the start I struggled getting my character right, but watching the others do so well really gave me the passion to keep going. Towards the end I really felt in character. It felt like whatever I said was canon because I felt so in character. The same went for Ollie and Mira, and I’m so proud of everyone and how well we all went, really putting up a show for the parents to enjoy. I made a few accidents in between, but they were quickly overlooked and forgotten, and I didn’t pay much mind to it. Overall I’m quite sad that everything is already over, I had a really fun time and I hope you enjoyed the show!

Some other exciting happenings that have occurred in the last fortnight is an update from the Rocket Scientists and innovators at NEXO, here is the founder and CEO Nishan to share some exciting news.

CONTENTS

CEO’s Message

About us.

Our meet with real aerospace engineers

Getting our first grant

Our rockets

Future goals

Our Staff

Special Thanks

Quick links

CEO’s Message.

Hi everyone I’m Nishan, I’m the CEO & Founder of NEXO Frontiers. We are a space focused rocket and avionics manufacturing startup made up of NMPS students. Our mission is to make access to space more sustainable and affordable, while also trying to make Australia a major player in the global space industry. Even though we might be a few years away from achieving our goal we are still rapidly scaling up and advancing our technologies. One important factor on reaching our goal is getting public support and telling everyone that we exist. To do this we have partnered with NMPS to create our very first Newsletter! In this newsletter we will be giving you a behind the scenes look on what happens inside our company. From updates on our scaling up initiative and to special conferences. I am so proud of what we have achieved over the past few months and excited to be able to share it with the world for the first time.

About us.

NEXO Frontiers was founded in mid 2023 when I realised that any normal space company or agency wont employ a 10 year old to be one of their aerospace engineers. And since I didn’t really feel like waiting for 8 years (at the time) to be of age. I started my own space company. Our next big milestone after coming into existence was the successful development and flights of our very first rocket: Neon. Neon was completed in late 2023 as a hobby science project and flew a total 9 successful missions. After the enormous success of Neon, NEXO started to become more of an actual company than a hobby. Now we are currently working on rockets each getting more and more advanced than the last one. We have also hosted two successful events to increase awareness on STEM and space. Including the Altitude Olympics in term 3 and the Behind The Scenes on Neon presentation back in 2023.

Our meet with real aerospace engineers

In week 4 we had the amazing opportunity to meet two real aerospace engineers in person. Shanon a space debris specialist from NASA worked on protecting the space shuttle and the international space station from space debris. While Alex an aerospace engineer from Rocket Labs was a key member on designing their Electron & Netron rockets as well as their rocket recovery missions. We have learnt a lot from them including what the behind the scenes of a government and commercial space programs. They have even given us the mission patches of some of their projects. This has inspired us greatly and we are already implementing their advice to extend our knowledge and add larger safety margins to our projects. We are incredibly grateful that we got to meet Shanon and Alex and would like to thank Kim, the teacher in 6E for organising this conference.

Getting our first grant

The majority of companies in the space sector live off grants and contracts to survive and expand their ability’s in their first few years. And I am proud to announce that we are now one step closer to becoming a real aerospace company. We are extremely fortunate to have won a grant from the NMPS science department. This grant has enabled us to fund our more expensive projects, like rocket 3(Resilience) by allowing us to purchase some of the crucial components of Resilience, like the cameras and flight computer. (You can find more about Resilience at nexofrontiers.space/resilience) We would like to use this opportunity to thank the School for their ongoing support over the last few weeks.

Our rockets

Now this is what you have been waiting for, it’s time to talk about rockets. NEXO Frontiers currently has two rockets in the works: Sky grazer and Resilience. These two rockets both have similar missions. Sky grazer’s primary mission is to test and certify our brand new HEX-O2 Model Parachute. For previous rockets we have been purchasing our parachutes from another manufacturer called Estes. However after later consideration we have decided that it will simply be easier and cheaper to manufacture the parachute in-house. Resilience will be adding a new component to the already existing mission. By carrying a payload, actually 2 payloads. Onboard our first ever cargo carrying rocket will be a small 1800p video recording camera and an Estes altimeter. Before it was impossible for us to get actual information from our flights but now we have the capabilities to record both visual and altitude data. This will be crucial for many different reasons. It will be a lot easier to troubleshoot failed flights and it will allow us to detect how modifying different components of the rocket will affect its overall performance. Once these two rockets and their related missions have been completed NEXO will push all of its efforts into developing Rocket 4 and beyond, in order to start working on our scaling up initiative. This is when we will actually start to push and advance our technology’s to eventually rival those of actual space companies. We will let you know the results of these two projects shortly.

Nishan (Ground Control) is prepping the launchpad for Neon’s maiden flight by wiring the ignition charges of the rocket motor. T-5 minutes and 27 seconds. Dec 9th 2023.

Future Goals

One of our main goals at the moment is to become an actual Australian registered company, which is likely to happen if Skygrazer and Resilience are successful or provide valuable data. We are also working toward receiving our junior L1 highpower rocket certification from the Victorian Rocketry Association. Achieving this certification will be a major milestone for us as it will allow us to purchase more powerful rocket motors than what are available to the general public.(This is the only High power rocketry certification that is available for an under 18 to receive) In the near future we might be featuring in a BTN episode to increase publicity and support.

Our staff

Nishan 6D, Louis 6A, Ashton 6D, Kevin 6A, Wren 6D, Iris 6A, Sabine 6B, Lachlan 6D, Olivia 5B, Tess 5B, Joel 6D, Rohan 6C, Raff 6A, Henry 6A.

Special Thanks

We would like to thank the following people for their support.

Nick, Errol st science teacher

Alex, RocketLabs Aerospace engineer

Shanon, NASA Aerospace engineer

Harriet, 6D teacher

Kim, 6E teacher

And all of our volunteers and staff for their hard and persistent work.

QUICK LINKS

Our website: nexofrontiers.space

NEXO NEWS: padlet.com/NexoFrontiers/news

Contact us: forms.gle/aXzj6jatP4oNPD7p9

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