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UT |
University of
Texas Zero-G Team |
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Experiment Status The
University of Texas at Austin is sponsoring the Nanosatellite Separation
Experiment Using a P-POD Deployment Mechanism to participate in the NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities
Program.
This program allows undergraduate college students to submit a proposal to perform
an experiment in microgravity aboard the NASA Weightless Wonder aircraft. In
September of 2007, the nanosatellite separation microgravity team was formed,
and they created a proposal for their experiment to be entered into the NASA competition. On December 6, 2007, the team was informed of
the experiment acceptance into the Microgravity University Program. Since
that time, the team has been designing and building their experiment as well
as informing the community about the NASA program and their experiment
through outreach events. The team will perform their experiment in the NASA C9B
aircraft on July 17-18, 2008. Objective The
objective of this experiment is to separate two nanosatellites using an Mk III
Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD), then observe and record data
regarding the resulting separation dynamics. Coincidentally, the University
of Texas at Austin will also be able to use the data from this experiment for
a University of Texas project, Texas 2-STEP, which is sponsored with NASA and
the Air Force Research Laboratory, will launch two satellites into an orbit
around Earth, separate them, and guide the larger Chaser satellite back to
the smaller Target satellite through GPS relative navigation and a cold-gas
propulsion system. The more significant purpose of this experiment, however,
is to share the separation data with the scientific community, as well as to
educate children, students, and the general community about the concerns of
space exploration. For
the most recent updates on the progress of the team, visit the Blog link in
the menu bar. Questions,
comments, and concerns may be addressed by the Team Leader, Johnny Sangree at
jstexan@gmail.com
Last updated on June 23, 2008 Copyright 2008. All Rights reserved. Website created by Jillian Marsh |
