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Wednesday, April 2. 2014
Students from SSPL participated in Exploration-U, an annual STEM
outreach fair, making small film canister rockets with K-12 students.
Check it out!  
Monday, September 16. 2013
First, a warm welcome to all new and returning members of SSPL to the Fall 2013 semester!
In Fall 2012, student members prepared a proposal for the "Orbital System for Investigating the Response of the Ionosphere to Stimulation and space weather" mission. This spring, the OSIRIS-3U mission was accepted for the NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative.
OSIRIS-3U will take measurements of the stimulated ionosphere using a three unit (3U) CubeSat, measuring 10 x 10 x 30 cm. Ground-based heaters will modify the atmosphere in order to create artificial space weather events that will be studied by OSIRIS-3U. The mission provides research into radiowave-plasma interactions and plasma transport.
Expected launch is late 2015 into early 2016. As the semester gets under way, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with the mission. Please stop by or contact a lead to see how you can get involved!
Thursday, January 24. 2013
For anyone interested in joining or that needs to know the meeting times, a list of each functional group meeting time and contact information is listed below. Communications: Monday 5:30p-6:30p Tim Hackett tmh5344@psu.edu
Ground Station: Monday 7:30p-8:30p Kodie Altvater kja5135@psu.edu
Mechanical: Friday 4:00p-5:00p Adam Johnson ajj5113@psu.edu
Power: Wednesday 7:00-8:00p Alex Scott ajs6006@psu.edu
Science/Payload: Monday 2:00-3:00 Tim Brubaker trb5084@psu.edu
Guidance Navigation & Control: Monday 8:00p-9:00p Sean McFarlane spm5276@psu.edu
Thermal: Tuesday 6:30p-7:30p Andre Coleman Jr. avc5184@psu.edu
Command & Data Handling: Hardware: Sunday 7:00p-8:00p Software: Sunday 8:00p-9:00p Craig Hammond cmh5701@psu.edu
Wednesday, September 5. 2012
On behalf of the Student Space Programs Laboratory, I'd like to give a warm welcome to all our new and prospective members of SSPL! The Student Space Programs Laboratory will be holding a kickoff meeting next Monday, September 10, at 8:15pm in 362 Willard. Experienced members of SSPL will be giving a short presentation on what it is we do, followed by a tour of our lab and pizza! You'll get to learn a bit about our satellite, OSIRIS, and what it takes to develop one. I hope to see you all there, and don't forget to tell your friends that might be interested!
Monday, January 16. 2012
Join the students of the Student Space Programs Laboratory (SSPL) this Tuesday, January 17th (Tomorrow!) at 7pm in 161 Willard for an informational meeting followed by a pizza social back in the lab (332 EE East). The SSPL is a student lab working to teach students about systems engineering through hands on projects. SSPL is presently working on small satellites (CubeSats) and high altitude balloon missions for technology demonstration. Other past projects include sounding rockets and small satellites for the Air Force NanoSat competition. Students of all experience levels and of all majors, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science to name a few are encouraged to join. Students gain hands on experience complementing their course work while bolstering their resume, helping to improve exposure and prospects from companies offering internships and full time jobs.
Friday, December 2. 2011
Steve and Tyler tested the rocket launcher leading up to tomorrow's launch for the First Year Seminar This IS Rocket Science. Look for more videos to be posted to YouTube soon! http://www.youtube.com/user/PennStateSSPL
Tuesday, October 25. 2011
 Last Thursday, students from the Student Space Programs Lab, EE 472 Satellite Communications, EE 009 FYS: This is Rocket Science, and EE 497E Space Systems Engineering Seminar, toured the facilities at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Newtown, PA. While there, the students learned about the GPS III satellite work done at the facility, the process for building communications satellites and how Lockheed Martin's satellite communications systems benefit their customers. Students got to see the clean rooms and testing facilities where satellite components are built and verified and full scale satellite testing is performed. We would like to thank our hosts at Lockheed Martin for the great tour!
Friday, January 14. 2011
SSPL's proposal for the OSIRIS Lite 2 (O2) payload on HASP 2011 has been accepted! HASP provides the opportunity for student payloads to fly at the edge of space to support science and technology development missions. The payload this year is a continuation of SSPL's OSIRIS CubeSat development program where the complete spacecraft bus will be demonstrated in the flight form factor.
Thursday, January 13. 2011
Do you remember that childhood fascination with space? Do you want to fly your work in space? Do you have a general interest in how things work? Do you want to get internship like experience while still taking classes? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then come join the Student Space Programs Laboratory at the kickoff meeting January 19 at 7pm in 160 Willard, where you can get your hands on real flight hardware and software while building a CubeSat mission, High Altitude Balloon Payloads, Rockets and Satellite Communications Systems. This semester will see the flight of one Balloon Payload and the building and testing of another to fly in September. All engineering, science. education and other majors are invited to join to work on projects funded by NASA, NSF, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Aeorspace Corporation. While working, you can add the extra impact to your diploma of a special Certificate in Space Systems Engineering ( http://www.engr.psu.edu/Departments/spacesys.aspx). Independent study, honors option/thesis topics are available. We have many projects and positions available. For more information, please attend the information session or contact Lab Director Professor Bilén ( sbilen@psu.edu) or Programs Manager Allen Kummer ( atk5025@psu.edu). http://sspl.psu.edu
Friday, October 29. 2010
The thermal team concluded a ~24 hour thermal vacuum test of OLite this morning. For the test, OLite was exposed to temperatures as low as -20 degrees C while operating as is expected during the HASP Balloon flight. Preliminary data shows that temperatures inside OLite got as low as -10 degrees C on the COMM FPGA while staying around 10 degrees C on the RF power amplifier. Congratulations to the entire OLite team for successfully surviving the simulated balloon flight.
Monday, October 25. 2010
The OLite 2 team had their first major design review yesterday when they presented their mission concept review to a review panel consisting of Dr. Sven Bilen (Associate Professor Electrical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, PSU), Robert Capuro (Retiree, Honeywell Inc.), and Michael Paul (PSU Applied Research Laboratory). Many thanks to the review team for their questions and comments during the review. The team will be working to address these comments as they move forward designing through to the PDR, scheduled for the week before Thanksgiving. Thank you reviewers and congratulations to the O2 Team. The review material can be found here or by request to the O2 Project Manager Allen Kummer, atk5025@psu.edu
Sunday, October 10. 2010
 OLite spent the afternoon outside today to calibrate the Maximum Power Point Tracker  (MPPT, Power Experiment). SSPL students Alex Hackett and Jim Cochrane worked with the payload recording solar flux as the payload itself tracked the peak power. This allows the power team to understand the differences between the operation of the MPPT at altitude vs on the ground as we access applying Indium Tin Oxide over the solar cells to increase the satellite return area.
Saturday, October 2. 2010
 The Comm and Ground Station teams completed a rangetestyesterday,  stretching about .8 miles along Curtin Road. They expect that the range was limited dueto obstructions like trees and cars along the line of sight. Further testing using attenuators is planned to simulate pass loss.
Wednesday, September 22. 2010
Since the start of the fall semester, the CDH team has been wrestling with repairing damage incurred on their subsystem during HASP integration in August. The team managed to get the upper hand today when they saw OLite's main flight computer program and boot into linux for the first time since Texas. Congratulations go out to the team as we look forward to the final board checkout and system integration next week.
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OLite spent the afternoon outside today to calibrate the Maximum Power Point Tracker
(MPPT, Power Experiment). SSPL students Alex Hackett and Jim Cochrane worked with the payload recording solar flux as the payload itself tracked the peak power. This allows the power team to understand the differences between the operation of the MPPT at altitude vs on the ground as we access applying Indium Tin Oxide over the solar cells to increase the satellite return area.