This final report describes efforts to sustain a unique educational opportunity for undergraduate students to team in the design, fabrication, and launch of small satellite systems. Our program impacts a broad spectrum of interested science and engineering students, providing hands-on experience in low-cost space experimentation. Local industry professionals and Arizona State University faculty have enthusiastically volunteered as technical advisors. Local companies have also been approached to provide other resources such as testing and fabrication facilities. In October 1993, the students at Arizona State University (ASU) were challenged by Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) to develop a 4.5-kg (10-lb) satellite (ASUSat 1) to be launched as a piggyback payload on a Pegasus rocket. The challenge also included the requirements for the satellite to perform meaningful science and to fit in the payload adapter cone section above the avionics (0.02 m(exp 3)). Moreover, the students were faced with the cost constraints associated with university satellite projects. This unusual set of constraints resulted in a design and development process which is fundamentally different from that of traditional space projects. The spacecraft capabilities and scientific mission evolved in an extremely rigid environment where cost, size and weight limits were set before the design process even started. In the ASUSat 1 project, severe constraints were determined first, and then a meaningful scientific mission was chosen which fit those constraints. This design philosophy can be applied to future interplanetary spacecraft. In addition, the ASUSat 1 program demonstrates that universities can provide an open-minded source for the innovative nanospacecraft technologies required for the next generation of low-cost planetary missions, as well as an economical testbed to evaluate those technologies. At the same time, the program provides hands-on training for the space scientists and engineers of the future. Approximately thirty-five students work on the project each semester, most are undergraduates. Course credit is offered in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and Computer Science & Engineering Departments, and senior design credit is available through MAE and Electrical Engineering.


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    Title :

    Ionospheric Plasma Research Experiment: ASUSat 1 and Advanced Spacecraft Technology Applications


    Contributors:
    H. L. Reed (author) / J. Puig-Suari (author)

    Publication date :

    1997


    Size :

    19 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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    Hewett, Charles / Rademacher, Joel / Reed, Helen et al. | AIAA | 1996


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    Hewett, C. H. / Utah State University; Center for Space Engineering / AIAA | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1995