We began developing K-SAT in September of 1997 and recruited the first class of students the following spring semester. That original group began school with us in the fall of 1998 and graduated in May 2001. During those years a frequently asked question by parents and students was this one: “What do you have planned after K-SAT?” We have been hard at work on the answer.

Before proceeding further, however, it is important to keep in mind that K-SAT recruits students from thirty-eight elementary schools. Due to this demographic diversity, graduating eighth graders have chosen (and will continue to choose) a variety of post-K-SAT options, including the return to their neighborhood high school. The year before last, many members of the original class of students made application to the Design & Technology Academy (DATA) at Roosevelt High School, while others attended the North East School of the Performing Arts (NESA) and The International School of the Americas (ISA), both located at Lee High School. Our graduates have also been accepted into the agricultural magnet school program at Madison High School. We are glad to see our students enter diverse and challenging high school programs and perform well in them; still, the student (and parental) question has persisted: “Can I study advanced aerospace topics? And if so, where then, and what would such a program look like?”

To answer that question, we developed the High-K-Track, a four-year plan of study for our graduating eighth graders. Classes are held on the Krueger campus on Tuesday evenings (6:00-8:00 P.M.), one Saturday per month, and summers. We began this program during the fall semester of ’02. The advantage of the High-K-Track approach is that it does not matter where the exiting K-SAT eighth grader attends high school, as he or she can still elect to participate in this challenging and one-of-a-kind aerospace pathway since classes are conducted at non-standard times. Another authenticating feature of this program is that students will build and operate large multifaceted rockets with advanced electronic and payloads.

Bill Wagner
High-K Instructor
Advanced Rocketry Advisor

High-K Pictures

What we fly this Saturday, 03/27/04
on Nitrous Oxide "J" Motors &
Big Yeller #3 on Full "M" Power

This is Big Yeller #4 next to #3. She just needs a little black paint and
a few decals and then we can place her GPS/ATV & other electronics
into her payload bays. She is designed to fly on Baby and Full "M"
motors to between 6500-12,000 ft altitude.

This is Big Yeller #6. She is unique in that she uses a full "M" Nitrous Oxide motor to reach approximately 12,000 ft.
altitude. The bottom unpainted section you see is actually a stand for the top payload section. To her right is Big Yeller #5,
which the High-K-Track students need to complete

There she goes . . . about 525 MPH on a Baby M motor to an altitude
of 7000 ft. with all instrumentation packages (GPS/ATV/Altimeters) fully
functional and transmitting to ground for a perfect launch and recovery.
Big Yeller #3 landed approximately 1.3 miles from the launch site, and
with GPS we walked right to her.