On August 27, 2018, Dakota State University’s STEM Institute hosted a Space Day event on the DSU campus. The event featured on-site and remote speakers representing both commercial and academic aerospace organizations. Raven Aerostar was invited to speak about our stratospheric balloon capabilities. In addition to Raven Aerostar, there were speakers from DSU, the USGS EROS Center, Sanford Underground Research Facility, and NASA. But the headline of the event was a live Q&A session with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The event was attended by a host of DSU students from various programs, including physics, chemistry, and computer science.
Brian Matherly, Engineering Team Lead, represented Raven as a speaker for the event. His presentation provided a brief history of Raven Industries, Raven Aerostar, and our stratospheric balloon program. He then went on to explain the uses for stratospheric balloons and the technology that makes them work.
Events like this provide great opportunities, as we get to support our local universities by helping them to bring up the next generation of bright minds. DSU has an excellent Computer Science program, and after my presentation, I fielded many technical questions from the students.
— Brian Matherly, Engineering Team Lead
Raven has had a positive relationship with Dakota State University over the years, and we appreciated the opportunity to participate in the university's STEM Institute Space Day.