Student projects are bound for space; well, pretty close
The ionosphere has neutral winds? Get out!
Few Utah State University students know much about the ionosphere, where space starts, and the composition of the neutral winds that are in it.
Three electrical engineering students have devoted hundreds of hours to finding out more about them.
“A year and a half for this little box right here,” said Chad Carlson, a master’s student in electrical engineering as he points to a 4″ x 4.5″ x 5″ metal box. “But I think it’s been very interesting.”
Students at the Space Dynamics Laboratory are working on the NASA-funded project, which is called A Sequential Rocket Study of Winds and Plasma Layers in the Nighttime E-Region, or EWINDS. The finished product will be a launch of four rockets during a night in late April from Wallops Island, a NASA rocket-flight facility in Virginia.
Each flight will last less than 10 minutes but will measure plasma density and temperature as well as the composition of the neutral winds in the ionosphere, said Chad Fish, a program manager at SDL.
“The winds start at about the equator and slowly descend through the layers the farther they get from the equator,” Fish said. “We’re trying to make measurements of those descending layers as they go throughout the night.”
At a certain height, each rocket will deploy two booms, metal rods about one inch in diameter and one yard long, which will stick out perpendicular to the rocket and spin, taking measurements of the ionosphere away from the body of the rocket, Fish said. The information will go into the box, which will process it and transmit it to NASA.
“Hopefully it all gets transmitted right because this little box will be in the bottom of the ocean by the end of the night and become a scuba destination,” said Ken Vanhille, who graduated from USU in December with a degree in electrical engineering. “NASA will send us the data eventually, and we’ll come back [to Logan] and analyze it here.”
The information will be used to test the hypothesis that “intermediate layers are driven by tidal winds at mid-latitudes” and will “investigate the relative importance of gravity waves and tides in their formation,” according to information provided by SDL.
The project is based on similar research that SDL employees have been working on for more than 30 years, Fish said.
“We’re using new ways of doing it, but we have the same goals,” he said.
Carlson said, “As the technology improves, we’ve been updating the instruments to try and get better data.”
The electronics have all been built, and the students are now testing the product to make sure it all works right, Carlson said.
“If we did everything right, this is the easy part. If we didn’t, it’s the hard part,” Vanhille said. “Once it works right, we’ll calibrate it and tweak it to make it work the best it can.”
The finished product will be sent to NASA during the first part of April, and the flights will take place at the end of the month.
“It just depends on the conditions for when it will launch,” Fish said. “You hope it can go on the first night, but you could be there for months waiting for the conditions to be right. It will turn out great. The students have really been working hard.”
Vanhille said the project is years of work for 10 minutes of glory, but it is worth it.
“It’s a good feeling you get to see that what you’ve been working on for so long looks like it’s working, and you can turn it on and it doesn’t blow up,” he said.
Albert Hummel, a junior studying electrical engineering, has also been working on the project.
SDL has been involved with rockets for more than 40 years, and the projects SDL puts together are the fun science side of NASA, Fish said.
“It gives students and scientists at the university the opportunity to do pure science without a lot of paperwork,” he said.
SDL employs hundreds of USU students in computer and engineering-related fields and is involved in about three launches each year, Fish said.
Carlson said he chose to study electrical engineering because “it was a toss of the coin between it and mechanical engineering.”
“My dad used to work with electronics, and it’s just a lot of fun,” he said. “I get a chance to fly stuff on rockets.”
Vanhille said he chose the field because he enjoys math and science, and electrical engineering is a practical way to put them together.
Carlson and Vanhille are both excited to see how their project turns out.
“It should be fun to watch it fly,” Carlson said.
–kcartwright@cc.usu.edu