University of Maryland

Help TERP RAPTOR Launch A Spacecraft

By Adrienne Rudolph

This initiative leverages a rare 1-in-7,500-year opportunity to position the University of Maryland as a leader in global deep-space exploration.

This initiative leverages a rare 1-in-7,500-year opportunity to position the University of Maryland as a leader in global deep-space exploration. WE HAVE LAB SPACE TO BUILD OUR CUBESAT AT NASA Goddard Space Flight Center! MISSION DESCRIPTION Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) that is roughly 350 meters in size, or about as wide as the Eifel Tower is tall. On April 13th, 2029, this wonderful asteroid will make an extraordinary close approach with Earth, a one-in-7500 years event. Generations to come may never see something like this with their own eyes. Although Apophis will pass very close to our planet, we can fortunately say with confidence that it will definitely not hit Earth. The University of Maryland's TERP RAPTOR is an interdisciplinary student CubeSat spacecraft mission, aimed at the asteroid Apophis. TERP RAPTOR is a 12U CubeSat equipped with a specialized camera, and laser retro-reflectors, to be carried to Apophis by a commercial partner to perform a flyby of the asteroid. This would put our mission on track to reach Apophis before any other currently green-lit mission. TERP RAPTOR will be deployed before the asteroid flyby, and a LIDAR system onboard the host spacecraft will track the CubeSat before, during, and after the asteroid flyby. The LIDAR ranging data between the two spacecraft reveals deflection of the spacecraft trajectories due to the asteroid's gravity, which in turn reveals the asteroid's mass. Apophis flying past the Earth, coming closer than many of our own satellites. Credit: NASA/Caltech/JPL SCIENTIFIC VALUE Asteroid mass is the most important physical property to measure for planetary defense, critically informing both the modeling of potential Earth impact damage, and the design of space missions to deflect or destroy asteroids. However, asteroid mass is VERY hard to measure during a high-speed reconnaissance flyby. Our proposed dual-spacecraft + LIDAR technique will be a 7x improvement in mass measurement accuracy over the current state-of-the-art. The data our mission provides about Apophis's mass, shape, and surface features will help us understand the asteroid's gravity field and rotational dynamics. This information will give other missions to Apophis a significant head-start in refining their proximity operations plans before they reach the asteroid. See our website link at the bottom of the page for more information. EDUCATIONAL VALUE In the past year alone, our students have had the chance to participate in two independent mission design studies with government and industry entities, attend conferences, lead technical reviews, engage with component vendors, publish a journal paper, learn and apply real engineering principles in their teams, and build out the university's first CubeSat program - and we haven't even gotten off the ground yet. Additionally, the majority of the organization, leadership, and management of those of those activities was performed by the students themselves. They have truly started a new program from the ground up. At UMD, we strive for excellence and we dare to push through every obstacle. This mission, filled with so many firsts, will be the experience of a lifetime for our students and mold them into your next entry level engineers, scientists, and businessmen and women. TERP RAPTOR BLAZES NEW TRAILS<ul><li>Our mission reaches Apophis in December 2028, several months before any other currently planned mission.</li><li>Our mission will demonstrate the first-ever flyby mass measurement of a sub-kilometer size asteroid.</li><li>TERP RAPTOR will mark the launch of UMD's first student spacecraft development program.</li><li>TERP RAPTOR will be the first university CubeSat to leave Earth's gravity well and travel to interplanetary space.</li></ul> OUR NEEDS Our initial $300,000 goal encompasses placing orders for the components with the longest lead times such as our imager, solar panels, attitude determination and control system, and propulsion system. To meet the strict deadline of the launch, these parts need to be ordered as soon as possible. The engineering and design process has already been completed, meaning these carefully selected parts already have a place on the final satellite. The numbers you see will allow us to place orders, but we will need to continue fundraising to pay the rest of our contracts upon component delivery! Procurement has begun, the purchase order for our imager has been placed! CubeSat Total Cost: ~$1.6M (includes 30% margin) DONOR ROI SEND YOURSELF TO SPACE! All donors will have their name loaded onto an SD card and placed in the CubeSat. BE PART OF THE MISSION This isn’t a classroom project. It's a full-scale deep space mission — designed, engineered, and operated by students — to fly past one of the most closely watched asteroids in modern history and take first-of-its-kind asteroid mass measurements. There is no comparable student-led mission. Not in scope, not in technical ambition. Every design choice has been validated directly by NASA engineers or through mission design lab studies, and every milestone earned on its own merits. The mission is now at a critical step: funding is needed to acquire hardware and accelerate towards launch. The spacecraft is designed. The launch window is set. What happens next depends on support from donors like you - willing to invest in a mission most thought our students could not accomplish. The TERP RAPTOR team is working to ensure that every dollar received achieves its maximum potential for the success of the mission, but our long term goals go beyond that. TERP RAPTOR is the first step in establishing an ongoing satellite development program at UMD. The investments and infrastructure put in place now will serve future missions, continuing to provide opportunities for students for years to come. If interested in corporate sponsorship, please contact us directly at <a href="mailto:terpraptor@umd.edu">terpraptor@umd.edu</a>. For more information and updates on our mission, please visit our TERP RAPTOR <a href="https://sites.google.com/umd.edu/terp-raptor">website</a> The TERP RAPTOR team is the proud recipient of the <a href="https://aero.umd.edu/news/story/terp-raptor-team-receives-2026-aiaa-best-paper-award">2026 AIAA Best Paper Award</a>. Gifts in support of the University of Maryland are accepted and managed by the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, Inc., an affiliated 501(c)(3) organization authorized by the Board of Regents. Contributions to the University of Maryland are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Please see your tax advisor for details.

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Support the Insect Zoo

By University of Maryland

The Insect Zoo introduces arthropod ambassadors to K-12 students, sparking curiosity in science through engaging, interactive experiences with live creatures.

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Smith Vets Remember 2026

By Frank Goertner

The Robert H. Smith School of Business M.B.A. fellowship is in memory of two part-time M.B.A. students who were killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

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Montgomery County 4-H Cake Auction 2026

By University of Maryland

Montgomery County 4-H is a youth development organization that strives to teach youth life skills and develop their passions to continue to their next steps.

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Make the Hair Wellness Project Possible

By University of Maryland

The Wellness Warriors are a national network of barbers and stylists who have received health advocacy training and organize health events in their businesses

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Support QUEST's 35th Anniversary

By University of Maryland

Gifts will support transformative QUEST experiences, including travel, scholarships, networking, professional development, and hands-on learning opportunities.

Gifts will support transformative QUEST experiences, including travel, scholarships, networking, professional development, and hands-on learning opportunities. To celebrate 35 years of the QUEST Honors Program, we are raising $35,000 to ensure that students have access to transformative learning experiences outside the classroom! Your generous contributions will help fund:<ul><li>Student scholarships for domestic and international trips (QUEST to New York City, QUEST to Silicon Valley, QUEST to Japan)</li><li>Transportation and lodging for QUEST trips and site visits</li><li>Professional development, networking, and hands-on learning opportunities that connect students with industry and broaden their perspectives</li></ul> 100% of donations directly support our students! Why These Experiences Matter: For 35 years, the QUEST Honors Program has brought together exceptional students from business, engineering, and science to solve real-world challenges through multidisciplinary collaboration. While the classroom provides a strong foundation, many of the program's most meaningful learning happens beyond it. Industry visits, experiential trips, professional development activities, networking events, and community-building experiences give students opportunities to apply what they learn, explore new perspectives, build relationships, and connect their classroom experience to the world outside of UMD. At the same time, the rising cost of these opportunities has made it increasingly difficult to provide financial support for every student who needs it. As a result, some QUEST trips and experiences have had to be scaled back or canceled. We want to ensure that financial circumstances never prevent a QUEST student from accessing the experiences that make this program so meaningful. Cohort 1 Students at IBM's Research Triangle ParkRaleigh, NC - 1996Help Us Reach $35,000 As we celebrate our 35th Anniversary in April 2027, we invite students, alumni, parents, corporate partners, UMD colleagues, and friends to invest in the next generation of QUEST leaders. With a strong community of more than 1,800 alumni, 250 current students, parents, corporate partners, UMD colleagues, and friends, we have the power to make a significant impact. Every gift brings us closer to our $35,000 goal and helps ensure that today's QUEST students can access the experiences that have defined the program for 35 years. Help us celebrate 35 years of QUEST by investing in the next generation of QUEST leaders. Together, we can reach $35,000! QUEST Students at Hong Kong Disney Site VisitHong Kong - 2014 The Impact: Student Feedback "I truly feel like this trip changed my perspective on my career. Until this trip, I had never pictured myself working at any of these companies, but after visiting, I found myself really looking forward to applying for internships at these companies next year. It was really great to see what interesting and diverse career opportunities await us as STEM students that we aren’t typically exposed to on the East Coast." - Tyler Apicella, Participant in 2025 Silicon Valley Trip Tyler Apicella and his peers at the Google Site VisitMountain View, CA - 2025 Gifts in support of the University of Maryland are accepted and managed by the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, Inc., an affiliated 501(c)(3) organization authorized by the Board of Regents. Contributions to the University of Maryland are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Please see your tax advisor for details.

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Invest in the Future of the Mighty Sound of Maryland

By Dr. Andrea Brown

Help us grow the first endowed fund to support scholarships for marching band students of all majors!

Help us grow the first endowed fund to support scholarships for marching band students of all majors! Your gift will have twice the impact! Thanks to a generous alum, all donations to the Student Scholarship Fund will be matched, and your donation will be doubled. Established by Dotty Reitwiesner ’78, the Marching Band Student Support Endowment provides scholarships to marching band students from all majors across campus. Since its founding, Mighty Sound of Maryland supporters have generously contributed more than $100,000 to support student scholarships. A gift of any size will help strengthen the Marching Band Student Support Endowment, providing scholarship support for generations of MSOM students. Your generosity will help ensure that students can continue to experience the transformative opportunities of the Mighty Sound of Maryland year after year.A personal call to action from Dotty: When I was in the marching band, I had to juggle school, my part-time job, and band. So it was an easy decision to help band members by creating a scholarship fund. A little help can go a long way toward making marching band participation less financially stressful. Please make a gift today and join me in growing this endowed scholarship. I have met some of the scholarship recipients, and each has expressed gratitude to all of the donors who contribute to this fund. And every recipient is a reflection of the band members we all marched with at UMD. Together, we can make MSOM the best band in the land! Your gift to the scholarship fund will have a positive and meaningful impact. Our best advocates are our MSOM scholarship recipients. This year, eleven students received awards. Here are their thank-you notes: The MSOM scholarship fund has given me the opportunity to focus on what matters most to me: school, professional internships, and my role as a leader in band. This financial freedom has made a tremendous difference in my life and allows me to give back to the MSOM community that has been my home throughout college. Thank you! Coming into college, I didn’t think I’d be able to juggle school, work, and marching band. But thanks to the MSOM Scholarship Fund, I can enjoy doing the thing I love without the burden of suffering financially or academically as a byproduct. Your generous gift will greatly assist in my ability to persist and thrive in MSOM. I am paying for my education, so awards such as these are paramount in helping me balance MSOM with my academic commitments, mainly by reducing the amount I have to work at my 2 campus jobs. By work less hours, I can focus more on being a great leader for my section, bonding with my section, be less stressed about the time commitment, and mitigate the opportunity cost of not working during rehearsal hours. Receiving this assistance allows me to shift my focus away from financial stress and more fully toward the incomparable experiences MSOM has to offer. It means so much to receive this support from an organization that has become one of the highlights of my personal and educational career. The MSOM Scholarship Fund is a great financial help. With it, I can worry less about how I'm paying for rent and groceries, and focus more on putting my all into being part of the band. Receiving this assistance took some financial burden off of having to work a campus job while also being a full-time student. I am very grateful for the giving nature of people who donate to MSOM to help students like me. This scholarship allows me to dedicate more time to music and my studies. As a senior, the MSOM Scholarship Fund helps me focus on my undergrad career as I prepare for graduate school while still being able to perform at my best for the Mighty Sound of Maryland. My family and I are truly grateful for this assistance and the financial relief it brings. Thank you so much for this assistance. Since my current financial aid doesn’t cover my tuition, this assistance will help me to buy groceries, and help me pay rent for the apartment I live in. This allows me to better enjoy the time I spend in band instead of working a part-time job. I am so grateful that I was selected to receive this financial assistance. Being out of state and balancing classes, this assistance is beneficial to my overall participation in MSOM this season, helping me strive and push for more. I am so proud to be a part of MSOM118! Thank you. Receiving this assistance is beneficial to my participation in MSOM by shifting my focus away from financial challenges and towards the fantastic experiences I have in Marching Band, my classes, and other extracurriculars. As a Senior, internships, higher-level courses, incoming graduate applications, and beyond have added a lot of stress to my schedule, and MSOM has continued to be a part of my college life that grounds me through these challenging moments. I am incredibly grateful for the support! Thank you so much for providing this financial relief. I will now be able to participate in MSOM without the overwhelming worry of adding a job to my already busy schedule, and I am glad that I can happily be in MSOM and continue to give my best efforts. Thank you for generously supporting future generations of MSOM students! Check out a performance by the Mighty Sound of Maryland from last season! Gifts in support of the University of Maryland are accepted and managed by the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, Inc., an affiliated 501(c)(3) organization authorized by the Board of Regents. Contributions to the University of Maryland are tax-deductible as allowed by law. Please see your tax advisor for details.

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