December 12, 2012
Members of the Women in Aerospace for Leadership and Development (WIALD) student organization are undertaking a project that will help the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department develop a new hands-on project for the introductory aerospace engineering course.
Working in two teams, the women are building BalloonSats – small, simple packages that carry lightweight experiments to the edge of space. The goal of the WIALD project is to design, build and test multiple payloads. The mini-satellites will be carried by a weather balloon to nearly 100,000 feet in altitude. Each BalloonSat will contain several components including a GPS unit, accelerometer, temperature sensor, data logger and camera.
While working toward designing a hands-on project, WIALD members are applying the systems engineering process and gaining hands-on experience with commonly used hardware for both atmospheric and space-based applications.
“By building these payloads and launching them on a weather balloon, we can simulate a spacecraft system and launch it to the edge of space at a relatively low cost,” WIALD President Ciara Waldron said.
WIALD members are also responsible for researching and procuring the parts to create the BalloonSat.
In the coming months, members will design the layout for the payload boxes, program and test the components. The goal for each team was to select a variety of components for their BalloonSat so that they can test them against each other. The most reliable components of each test will be used to build the final kit for the project course curriculum.
The project managers for each team have implemented required milestones at regular intervals, including a critical design review with a panel of faculty members and graduate students, leading up to the target balloon launch date of March 23.
Before launch, the BalloonSats will be required to undergo extensive testing to ensure they will function reliably and return scientific results. After results are analyzed, WIALD members will give presentations on their findings and provide the curriculum committee tasked with developing the new course with any requested feedback and information.
Members of WIALD are very excited to see the pictures and video that will be taken during the balloon’s ascent to the edge of space.
“If our launch is successful, we will have beautiful pictures and video of the curvature of the Earth and the edge of space. We will also gain a lot of useful data from the sensors in our payloads,” said Waldron.
She believes the more hands-on curriculum will be highly beneficial to students and provide them with a unique advantage.
“I’ve gained a lot of hands-on experience during projects like this and it’s been very beneficial in my internships. I have experience in machining parts, computer modeling of components and overall spacecraft systems engineering. It feels great to know we are helping future students gain the same kind of experience in the classroom.”
