Auburn University Student Space Program

1. Auburn University Student Space Program

2. Overview of AUSSP • Auburn University Student Space Program • Made of two groups • Auburn High Altitude Balloon (AHAB) • AubieSat-1 • Directed by Dr. JM Wersinger • Housed in Allison Lab • Funded by Alabama Space Grant Consortium

3. Space Grant Consortium • Part of NASA • Started in 1989 • National network comprised of over 850 affiliates • Support fellowships and scholarships for STEM students • Alabama’s is housed in Huntsville and headed by Dr. John Gregory

4. Workforce Development • Over 250 students have participated and entered the workforce • Great opportunity for hands on experience • Students develop leadership, technical, team working, and management skills

5. Aubie-Sat 1

6. Overview of AubieSat-1 • Auburn’s first student built satellite • Developed as a workforce development program • Considered a CubeSat (10 cm cube) • Calpoly deals with launch vehicle integration • Science mission to measure properties of ionosphereic plasma and relate that to solar activity • All subsystem electronics custom made in house

7. Technical Overview • Command and Data Handling • Electrical Power • Primary Communications • Secondary Communications • Attitude Control and Determination • Ground Station

8. Ground Station

9. What we do • Design • Build • Test • Integrate

10. Future of AubieSat-1 • 30% of hardware still to be built • 80% of the subsystems still need to be integrated • Functional and Environmental testing • Build Flight Version

11. AHAB Auburn’s High Altitude Balloon team

12. Overview of AHAB • Workforce development program • AHAB students design, build, test and launch balloon-craft to the edge of space, nearly 100,000 feet above sea level. • The balloon-craft carry experiments that collect science and other technical data. • They are used to test satellite components in near-space conditions, to collect atmospheric, and space data and to study the behavior of balloon craft during flight.

13. Overview of AHAB

14. Technical Overview • Command and Data Handling • Controls the camera and data logging functions • Communications • Designs a system that allows constant contact with balloon during flight • Structure • Designs and builds housing for electrical components • In charge of ensuring FCC rules are followed (under 6 lb per payload) • Power • Supplies all subsystems with required power for functionality

15. Outreach and Science • Outreach • Keep contact with high schools to get them involved in our program and Auburn • Sent up high school science experiments with our payload • High school students came numerous times to our lab • Came to launch

16. Science • Produce science analysis reports after each launch • Produce graphs (temp vs time, pressure vs time, humidity vs time, temp vs pressure) • Produce reports to show launch predictions and launch results

17. Launch—Spring 2009

18. Launch—Spring 2009

19. Launch—Spring 2009

20. Why should you get involved • Great hands on experiences • Experience in design and build process • Understanding integrating multiple systems • Internship opportunities • Pride in Auburn University • Having something you built orbiting the Earth

21. Participants • Students • Volunteers • Students taking it as a physics class • Engineering Senior Design students (ME, ECE, SECS) • Industrial Engineering students • Approximately 25 Students per semester • Faculty Advisors (Physics, ECE, ME, Software Eng.) • Technical advisors (retired senior managers)

22. Questions? Contact: Dr. JM Wersinger: wersinger@physics.auburn.edu Aubie-Sat—Jeffrey Driggers: jld0002@auburn.edu AHAB—Mallory Garver: mlg0002@auburn.edu