Starting A Student Satellite Program

The Nevada Space Grant Consortium’s student satellite program, NevadaSat, is an ongoing multi-faceted program providing students with high-impact exposure to the aerospace fields. The program includes multidisciplinary student activities in scientific ballooning, rocketry, and Earth-orbiting satellites, known as BalloonSat, CanSat, and CubeSat, respectively. All of these programs are active and critical towards achieving the goal of producing a student satellite to be launched into Earth orbit in the next 3-5 years. Producing and flying a CubeSat is a complex and challenging endeavor. It necessitates support through “training” programs like BalloonSats and CanSats, which build the necessary hands-on skills in students and build interest. This paper begins by presenting an overview of student satellite programs that exist both nationally and locally. Next the process of starting and supporting a multidisciplinary student satellite program is described and the results to date are presented. Finally, the benefits of the program and initial assessment results are discussed. 1. Background on Student Satellites The National Space Grant Student Satellite Program was created to address NASA’s future workforce development needs. NASA has a strong need for engineers, scientists, and managers who have experience working in interdisciplinary teams. Similarly, NASA is a leader in the use of remote operations in the form of telescience or telecontrol of robots because of the numerous spaceflight missions conducted each year. The Nevada Space Grant Consortium’s (NvSGC) student satellite program, NevadaSat, is one of the many programs within the National Student Satellite Program [1]. Students participating in NevadaSat are studying and developing complex systems that will lead to NvSGC’s future goal of launching a student-built satellite into orbit. The approach taken uses a process of graduated steps in program complexity—the formula followed by other successful Space Grant Consortia such as Arizona State University, who use CanSat as a primer for students desiring to become involved in their larger-scale CubeSat program (both CanSat and CubeSat are described below). According to the National Space Grant Student Satellite Program [1]: Across America, Space Grant students are learning from the ground up-literally—by designing, building, flying and operating a broad range of spacecraft. Students come with an interest in Space, but with different levels of P ge 10133.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education skill, knowledge, and experience. Missions of growing complexity provide opportunities to acquire baseline skills and then to build on them. We call this strategy "crawl", "walk", "run" and "fly!" This craw, walk, run, and fly euphemism forms the core of the NevadaSat Program. Our roster of activities begins with BalloonSats (Figure 1, left), where students build payloads out of kits with data logging equipment, a timer, a camera, and material to build an enclosure. The payloads are attached to a lanyard, parachute and a weather balloon. The weather balloon provides lift for the students’ project and sends them up to a predetermined height. The data logging equipment records data such as radiation, temperature, and pressure. CanSats (Figure 1, center) represent the next level of complexity in the student satellite program. In this case, the student payloads fit inside a standard soda can (hence the name “CanSat”) and are launched to an altitude of approximately 2 miles via a high power rocket. Attending the rocket launches is always the highlight of this activity. CubeSat (Figure 1, right) started in 1999 as a collaborative effort between California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, and Stanford University’s Space Systems Development Laboratory. The purpose of the project was to provide a standard for the design of picosatellites so that a common deployer could be used. In this way costs and development time could be reduced, resulting in increased accessibility to space and frequent launches. Currently more than 30 high schools, colleges, and universities from around the world are developing CubeSats. Figure 1: BalloonSat (left), CanSat (center), CubeSat (right) [Photos of CubeSats reproduced from courses.ece.uiuc.edu/cubesatpub/intranet/pictures.htm]