Cache Valley • At first glance, the expansive agricultural fields, lush gardens and thriving dairy farms make this place an ideal home for agriculture. But hidden behind all this farmland is a window to the stars.
For all its love and embrace of rural life, Cache Valley generates millions in federal funding to support its aerospace industry, which supplies satellites, sensors and other space instruments that roam the cosmos and allow humankind a glimpse into infinity and beyond.
“I am lucky to be part of a community that has changed the world,” said Charles Swenson, a Utah State University professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Logan’s claim to the title of Space City, Utah, is due largely to USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory, a missile defense agency and space research center that has been a NASA contractor for decades, contributing to various missions through the years.
In recent years, the lab has received $1 billion in funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory to create space-related technology such as space sensors, cybersecurity and satellite navigation. For NASA, the lab has been funded to create space technology for a variety of projects, including its Atmospheric Waves Experiment, its Orbiting Carbon Observatory and the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment.
Logan’s reputation as a hub for aerospace has been bolstered by another byproduct of the lab. The biggest small satellite conference on the planet has been an economic boon for the area, focusing the world’s eyes on Cache Valley.
Soon, the Small Satellite Conference — or SmallSat, as it’s more commonly known — will drift from Logan’s orbit, leaving behind the community it called home for decades. As the conference approaches liftoff, some in the valley worry the area will be left in the dust.
An ag hub turns to space
(Kelden Peterson | Space Dynamics Laboratory) Space Dynamics Laboratory's North Logan headquarters.
In 1982, Space Dynamics Laboratory emerged in a way similar to a new galaxy: with a bang. The lab came through the merger of the University of Utah’s Upper Air Research Laboratories and USU’s Electro-Dynamics Laboratories, which had been operated by the school’s College of Engineering since 1958.
The origins of SDL, however, go back decades before that — specifically, to the earliest U.S. space experiments using German V-2 rockets at the end of World War II. These experiments led to the formation of the labs that eventually became Space Dynamics Laboratory.
Through the years, the lab became a key player in air and ground solutions for the U.S. Department of Defense, and a leading research center for upper atmospheric and space measurements. In 1996, the Defense Department named the lab a University Affiliated Research Center sponsored by the Missile Defense Agency.
(Allison Bills | Space Dynamics Laboratory) Engineers in cleanroom suits posing with the American flag.
The lab’s work is known across the globe. For example, NASA’s universe-mapping and asteroid-hunting satellite, NEOWISE — which was recently powered down — was constructed by the lab.
The profile of Space Dynamics Laboratory’s projects and contracts, however, isn’t the only thing to build up the aerospace industry here. A major piece of that puzzle was much, much smaller.
Small satellites with a big impact
Although Utah State’s connection to the industry dates back to the Atomic Age, when the government asked the school to conduct research, the SmallSat conference truly put the area on the map, according to Swenson, the USU professor.
In 2023, Space News recognized the conference as an “Unsung Hero” of the space industry, calling it a “must-attend commercial space trade show and conference.”
Despite generating initial skepticism, the first SmallSat in Logan, hosted in 1987, attracted a diverse and creative group, Swenson said, including university representatives, amateur inventors and participants from as far away as England. Each year after that, the conference grew.
“There is absolutely no doubt that the conference has been the focal point for change and for industry and new ideas within the space community, and it is,” Swenson said. “It’s definitely the number one most influential conference for small satellites, but it’s also a very influential conference for space.”
Swenson, who has been involved with SmallSat since its inception, said the event’s growth is thanks largely to three USU professors — Frank Redd, Gilbert Moore and Rex Megill — who wanted to share their vision for small satellites with the world.
(Allison Bills | Space Dynamics Laboratory) Engineers work on the assembly of the SunRISE space vehicle with the solar array deployed.
Through the conference, USU and Cache Valley have hosted some of the most influential figures in the space industry, including SpaceX and its CEO, Elon Musk. However, the SmallSat didn’t start as the major event it is today. In fact, Swenson said, the concept of small satellites was initially dismissed by much of the industry.
But Redd, Moore and Megill saw its potential — particularly Redd, who recognized the need for satellite projects that students could get hands-on experience with while teaching space engineering courses.
Their vision was to bring together individuals from academia, government agencies like NASA and the Defense Department, and private industry to discuss how small satellites could advance space exploration and defense. Their goal, Swenson said, was to transform the industry.
“Let’s talk about the new ways about approaching space,” he said, referring to what the conference founders were discussing at the time, “and let’s try and convince the United States government and the world that having more people with diverse ideas working on putting together satellites and [putting them] into space — that will innovate and change and improve our ability to do things in space.”
Has the space industry outgrown Logan?
(Clarissa Casper | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Small Satellite Conference in Logan on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024.
But as the gathering grew in Cache Valley, hotel prices soared, big names in the industry stopped attending, and conference leaders started looking for a new host city.
When it was announced during this year’s SmallSat that the event, which attracts more than 4,000 space industry professionals from around the world each summer, would be heading to the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City next year, the news shook many.
For some small satellite enthusiasts and conferencegoers, the news was bittersweet. Many enjoy the charm offered by Cache Valley and feel nostalgic when they visit, but participants were driving long distances from hotels in nearby counties to attend, and lodging prices in Logan had skyrocketed — up to five times the usual rate.
For some Cache Valley leaders, the news was daunting, because the satellite conference has a significant economic impact on the area.
“It is something that will impact us negatively,” Dirk Anderson, chief deputy to the county executive, said during a Cache County Council meeting shortly after the announcement. “Economically and in many other ways.”
In response, county leaders started working with SmallSat organizers to ensure area vendors can still be involved, even though the conference will no longer take place in Logan.
During the Aug. 13 meeting, council members discussed ways the county could avoid missing out on future opportunities due to the area’s lack of space for large events and conferences.
Council member Sandi Goodlander asked Sean Milne, the director of economic development and intergovernmental affairs for the Bear River Association of Governments, what it would take to bring back SmallSat to Cache Valley.
“I don’t know that we’ll have the opportunity, because Salt Lake County saw an opportunity,” he responded. “They pounced on it. They’ve offered them an incentives package if they will sign a multiyear deal. They’re just as hungry.”
A spokesperson for Visit Salt Lake said the nonprofit did offer an incentive to bring SmallSat to Utah’s most populous county but declined to offer specifics.
Jamie Andrus, CEO of the Cache Chamber of Commerce, said the conference’s total annual economic impact is about $6.4 million. While the chamber hopes the conference will continue to help the area economy with its ties to Utah State, it will not reach the same $6 million mark.
“We are grateful,” Andrus said, “that so many individuals and vendors who have attended over the years from all over the nation and the world have been exposed to beautiful Cache Valley.”
Still, Swenson said, the conference had to leave to serve the small satellite community.
“The importance of the conference and the size of the conference outgrew the community,” he said. “I feel sad, but for several years, I’ve known that it had to leave.”
All is not lost
(Allison Bills | Space Dynamics Laboratory) Space Dynamics Laboratory employees with the Thermal & Optical Research (THOR) chamber in a cleanroom.
Cache Valley’s ties to the space industry are far from over, though. Space Dynamics Laboratory is staying put, and many opportunities continue to attract aerospace students.
Moore, one of the space pioneers in the area, helped establish USU as a place where students can gain hands-on satellite experience, including the chance to launch satellites into space before they graduate.
“Utah State has a strong reputation for engineering,” said Thomas Fronk, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at USU. “Aerospace is the draw for most of the students who come here. We hear that quite often.”
In 1976, Moore presented the idea of placing undergraduate student science experiments aboard the space shuttle to industry colleagues at the same conference where NASA announced the Get Away Special program, or GAS program, which offered individuals or student groups the chance to fly small experiments into space.
Moore immediately announced he would buy the first GAS canister for a group of USU students, and the school’s first student-built experiment entered space in 1982, Fronk said.
Moore then conceived the idea of launching a small satellite from a GAS canister and persuaded NASA to support it.
Today, students on USU’s Get Away Special team frequently launch such satellites, depending on whether the team secures a grant from NASA.
Ethan Wayland, a junior at USU and the student coordinator for the team this year, said his group is working on a small cube satellite that will soon be launched into orbit. He said students can even get feedback on their satellites directly from NASA.
“It’s really exciting” he said, “to know that what we’re working on is definitely going to space.”
Now that he has gotten a “taste of space” in Cache Valley, Wayland said, he’s become passionate about it. The area has been the ideal place to form the necessary connections and gain the skills needed to break into the field.
“There are all sorts of opportunities,” he said, “here in Cache Valley.”
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