After toiling all hours of the day, including weekends, on experiments and technology demonstration projects, university and community college students from across the country will see the results of their hard work fly to space on a NASA suborbital sounding rocket Aug.14, 2018, from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The launch of the 44-foot tall two-stage Terrier-Improved Malemute rocket is scheduled between 5:45 and 10 a.m. EDT. The backup launch dates are August 15 – 17.
After flying to around 91miles altitude, the payload, with the experiments, will descend by parachute and is expected to land 15 minutes after launch in the Atlantic Ocean, about 64 miles off the Virginia coast. The experiments and any stored data will be provided to the students later in the day following sea recovery of the payload.
The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will open at 5 a.m. on launch day for viewing the flight. The rocket launch is expected to be only seen from the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland.
Live coverage of the mission is set to begin at 5:15 a.m. on the Wallops Ustream site. Launch updates also are available via the Wallops Facebook and Twitter sites. Facebook Live coverage begins at 5:30 a.m.
The experiments are flying through the RockSat-X program in conjunction with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. RockSat-X is the most advanced of NASA’s three-phase sounding rocket program for students. The RockOn launches are at the entry level, then progress to the intermedia level RockSat-C missions and then RockSat-X.
Participating institutions in this flight are the University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of Puerto Rico; Virginia Tech, Blacksburg; University of Kentucky, Lexington; Capitol Technology University, Laurel, Maryland; University of Maryland, College Park; Temple University, Philadelphia; .
Also, the West Virginia Space Flight Design Challenge is a collaboration between The Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, and four colleges in West Virginia –.West Virginia University, Morgantown; Marshall University, Huntington; West Virginia State University, Institute; West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon; and NASA’s IV & V Facility in Fairmont.
Giovanni Rosanova, chief of the Sounding Rocket Program Office at Wallops, said, “We are looking forward to the eighth flight of a RockSat-X payload on a NASA sounding rocket. Participating students are able to apply what they learn in the classroom into a hands-on project. To be a part of this process is rewarding to everyone involved in RockSat-X at Wallops.”
RockSat-X is part of a three-tier program that introduces secondary institution students to building experiments for space flight and requires them to expand their skills to develop and build projects that are more complex as students progress through the programs. RockSat-X experiments fly approximately 20 miles higher in altitude than those in the RockOn and RockSat-C programs, providing more flight time in space.
“It’s amazing to see students progress through RockOn and RockSat process. They are able to increase their skill levels, skills that industry and government organizations seek,” said Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.
The agency’s Wallops Flight Facility, which is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, conducts NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program. NASA’s Heliophysics Division manages the sounding-rocket program for the agency.
The experiments on this RockSat-X flight are:
Community Colleges of Colorado
The Orbital Scrap Capture and Reclamation (OSCAR) project is a collaboration between three community colleges in Colorado — Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Community College of Aurora, and Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood. The purpose of this experiment is to develop a cost effective method to alter the trajectory of space debris in suborbital flight. The payload creates an electrostatic field to attract small pieces of aluminum debris by charging a deployable rod with rabbit fur. The team hopes to use what they learn during this flight to better validate a potential method for deorbiting space debris in the future – a problem that is currently being investigated by a number of different institutions.
Capitol Technology University
The goal of Project Janus is to demonstrate the use of a laser distancing system to measure the speed of CubeSats within constellation during flight. This project simulates a satellite powered by its own battery system activated by Wallops. The payload uses two laser range finders to measure the distance and speed of a small CubeSat that moves along a track. It also uses the Iridium network to communicate and downlink data. CTU is also collaborating with a school for students with learning disabilities who are flying their own, independent experiment (U2-Pi Imager). The U2-Pi project aims to take images of the Earth’s surface to assess land coverage.
Temple University
Temple University’s mission is to detect flux and angular distribution of cosmic radiation as a function of altitude. This project is part of TU’s senior design class and aims to expand upon previous research on radiation at lower altitudes. The payload uses scintillation coupled silicon photomultipliers to detect muon and high energy particles at various altitudes during the flight of the sounding rocket. They hope to be able to detect these muons and cosmic rays and collect data on them to be able to determine their direction of travel.
University of Colorado Boulder
The purpose of the Measuring Emitting Ground stations using Antennas Listening for Oscillating Doppler Outputs from NEXRAD (MEGALODON) experiment is to use passive RF technology to characterize the local NexRad Doppler Radar network. RF signals tend to degrade as they travel through the Earth’s atmosphere and understanding these losses is crucial in the formation of a link budget. The team is developing a theoretical Matlab model to determine the projected nominal path loss due to altitude, radar pointing and scanning modes, and other environmental factors. The data collected during flight will be compared to the model to characterize other losses such as factors such as free space path loss and radar pointing.
University of Maryland
This payload includes two different experiments from the University of Maryland. The Stratification and Tribocharging Analysis of Regolith (STAR) experiment will study the effects of tribocharging on extra-terrestrial regolith simulant. It utilizes RaspberryPi imagers to capture pictures of regolith simulant as it charges in a space environment. The Space Characterization and Assessment of Manipulator Performance (SCAMP) project will fly a functional robotic manipulator component in a microgravity environment to test contact stability on both hard and soft contacts. This experiment will rotate a bar with a changing moment of inertia in order to provide contact stability data for a satellite servicing robot experiment currently in progress at UMd.
University of Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico’s mission is to collect micrometeorites in the Meteor Trail at altitudes of 49 – 68 miles (80-110 km) in order to gather organic molecules for complete DNA, RNA, and Nucleic Acids. The payload uses polyimide aerogels to collect samples of micrometeorites and organic molecules and includes a MinION real-time DNA and RNA sequencer. The payload also uses a number of different cross contamination mitigation strategies prior to and during launch including thorough cleaning of the payload and surrounding rocket skin and releasing oxygen plasma at apogee.
Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech’s mission is to support STEM education and outreach by utilizing the ThinSat platform that allows high school and university students to test their own experiment in a space environment. The payload deploys three ThinSats – two of which have been built by local high school students from Blacksburg High School – that collect data on UV radiation, stabilization using a reaction wheel, ionizing radiation (using a Geiger counter), and RF transmission. The payload also deploys an antenna to allow the ThinSats to transmit their data back to the main payload on the rocket.
West Virginia Collaboration
The Hobart and William Smith Colleges are attempting to measure the temperature and vibration of their payload throughout the rocket’s flight. Marshall University’s experiment uses an automated target acquisition system to take pictures of target stars and assess the effectiveness of astronomy.net for target acquisition during flight. West Virginia State University is preparing for future CubeSat missions by comparing different equipment designs and testing the feasibility of a Michelson Interferometer. West Virginia University is evaluating the capabilities of a jettisoned capsule to project individual experiments in future missions and design an ultra-compact plasma spectrometer with reduced mass, volume, and high voltage requirements and comparing it to identical instruments. West Virginia Wesleyan College‘s experiment is to compare the effectiveness of a thermionic converter to a solar panel in space and to prove NOAA magnetometer data
Keith Koehler
NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia
