News

Last weekend the solar cell array for the OSIRIS CubeSat was built. Here are some images of Allen and Matt in the lab.

Read more at: http://www.centredaily.com/news/local/story/1415617.html

This past week, students from the OSIRIS team completed a design review with our mentors at Aerospace Corp. The students presented their work leading up to an NSF sponsored CubeSat solicitation to gather some useful input into industry practices and how they could help produce a winning proposal.

For more information on Aerospace Corp please visit: www.aero.org

Other Links:
Professor Sven G. Bilén
Center for Space Research Programs

Tony Tao, a Junior in Aerospace Engineering and project manager for the OSIRIS CubeSat project, spent the summer of 2008 working for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the Space Grant program. His work was centered around the mission and data system design for the HyspIRI (Hyperspectral InfraRed Imager) satellite, planned for launch in 2015.

HyspIRI will collect hyperspectral images from the visible-shortwave to mid-infrared parts of the EM spectrum, which will aid scientists in studying global climate and ecological health. This data is extremely large in volume due to its nature (on the order of hundreds of gigabytes per day), and it was the mission of the HyspIRI intern team to design the mission and data systems to handle the scientific data collected by the satellite.

In recognition of the team's work, JPL has published an article and interview video: [link]

The flight of the HASP (High Altitude Student Platform) balloon carrying SSPL's HEMI (High Energy Monitoring Instrument) has concluded successfully. This flight brings HEMI one step closer in the development of the instrument for flight on the proposed NASA spacecraft, JANUS. Congratulations to everyone involved.

EDIT 9/17/08: This flight has ended and the video link is no longer valid.

LIVE:

SSPL’s prototype of the HEMI instrument launched from Ft. Sumner on a high altitude balloon this morning.

A live webcast is being broadcast at: http://laspace.lsu.edu/HASP/video/cosmocam.html

The flight will last approximately 20 hours; Quick-look science data should be available shortly after the flight.

Congratulations to the HEMI team!

Congratulations for your achievements at Honeywell, Ken!

The Penn State Flyin Lions microgravity team returned to Ellington Field in Houston, Texas for NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. The team proposed a reflight of their dusty plasma experiment from last year in October, and was selected. This year’s team consists of veteran flyers Chad Gerdish (B.S. ’08) and Jessica Tramaglini (senior) of Aerospace Engineering, veteran program participants Jaci Croce (B.S. ’08) of Civil Engineering and Val O’Donnell (junior) of Electrical Engineering, and Laura Essinger-Hileman (junior) of Secondary Education. Flight week’s events consisted of physiological training, hypoxia (lack of oxygen) training in the hyperbaric chamber in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL), preparing the experiment, and participating in a test readiness review before being allowed to fly. The second flight day’s experiment proved successful, after improvements from the first flight day. After flight days the Flyin’ Lions partook in a tour of Johnson Space Center. The team is currently beginning data analysis and the final report due to NASA. In addition to the technical experiment, the team also conducted outreach. In addition to participating in the College of Engineering open house and Exploration Day, the Flyin’ Lions have been working with Penns Valley Middle School students. Together the students came up with several ideas for minor microgravity experiments. Per their ideas, the team brought up a snow globe, bubble gun, and battery-operated car with fins the students fabricated, to study the effects of microgravity on these objects. Much work still lies ahead, with data analysis, a final report due to NASA, and final meeting with the middle school students still to be accomplished. The team has already learned so many beneficial lessons from the program, and seeks to ensure that the Penn State Flyin Lions remain in the skies.

Discussion with Prof. Bob Schunk, author of several ionospheric books.

Students with Prof. Bodo Reinisch, Head of Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences Department at University of Massachusetts Lowell and developer of the first digital ionosonde.

Students with Dr. David Anderson, NOAA -- he is well known in ionospheric modeling and calculations of ionospheric response to geomagnetic effects.

Students meeting will Dr. Gehrels

Touring one of Goddard's balloon payloads in development - an X-Ray telescope.

Hardware being assembled and tested in the world's second largest clean room for the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.

Students in front of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (expected to launch late fall 2008)