Air Force Academy cadets are awaiting the live television coverage of the Atlas V rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday that will thrust their FalconSAT-3 satellite into orbit.

Once above the Earth’s pull, the cadet-engineered satellite will be under the command of the cadets via the Academy’s ground control station and will begin gathering scientific data.

According to a press release from the Academy, the FalconSAT-3 contains five military scientific experiments that are the work of the Academy’s Space Physics and Atmospheric Research Center, and other government agencies.

The Research Center runs a multi-disciplinary, two-semester astronautical engineering course in which cadets put theory into practice by designing and constructing a microsatellite.