Marquette Senior High School installed an advanced radio antenna system Saturday, Sept. 26, becoming the first U.S. high school to receive the upgraded equipment through a University of Michigan and NASA partnership.

The dual-dipole antenna is part of the SunRISE Ground Radio Lab, a program run by the University of Michigan College of Engineering that trains students to monitor solar radio bursts and other space weather. WLUC first reported the installation.

The new antenna covers a broader range of frequencies and is more sensitive than earlier models used in the program, according to the WLUC report. It will help scientists track space weather events that can disrupt telecommunications and power grids on Earth. SunRISE Ground Radio Lab team leader Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan, said the improved data could let operators shut down a single transformer in a targeted region rather than cutting power to an entire grid.

Twenty-four high schools across the country now participate. Akhavan-Tafti said nearly 2,400 students nationwide have been trained through the program on designing space instrumentation and observing the sky.

The program began as a University of Michigan class for undergraduate and graduate students in 2021. The Ground Radio Lab collaboration launched in August 2023 and expanded to high schools at NASA's suggestion, Michigan Advance reported in June 2025. NASA covers the cost of the $500 antenna kits, which University of Michigan students designed as a lower-cost alternative to the original $25,000 research antennas.

Students who complete the training modules receive certificates approved by the University of Michigan College of Engineering and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Office of Education, according to the program's website.

The hands-on work has reshaped career plans for Marquette students. Senior Ellyana Franz said the program changed how she thinks about engineering.

"When I thought of electrical engineering or chemical engineering I really didn't think about anything that we'd be doing hands on, I thought it would all be more like not mechanical work, more online or in a room all day, but it's really not," Franz said. "And that kind of opened up a lot of new opportunities of things that I'd be interested in doing in college."

Senior Eric Gerou said building and using the antenna made the science tangible, adding that seeing the equipment in person was far easier to grasp than reading about it on a screen.

Some Marquette students who participated in the program have gone on to join the University of Michigan team, Akhavan-Tafti said. The program provides antenna kits free of charge to participating schools, and interested families can find details on the SunRISE Ground Radio Lab website.