We Have Liftoff & The Story of STEVE

Explore STEVE through two connected stories of student innovation and citizen science.

First, go behind the scenes of FrontierSat with Dr. Jonathan Burchill and discover how University of Calgary students designed and launched Calgary’s first student-built satellite, a loaf-sized CubeSat created to study STEVE and the space above Earth.

Then, Chris Ratzlaff shares how the Alberta Aurora Chasers and a community of citizen photographers helped turn a mysterious ribbon of purple light into an internationally recognized atmospheric phenomenon.

Together, these talks reveal how curiosity, community, and innovation are helping scientists better understand one of the night sky’s most remarkable phenomena.