NASA to launch 'U' students' experiment

A group of Engineering students should be flying high today as they see nearly four years of their research and hard work rocket into space aboard the shuttle Endeavour.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's latest launch of Endeavour, scheduled for 3:54 a.m. today, carries a physics experiment designed and built by University students in its cargo bay.

The project is called the Vortex Ring Transit Experiment, or VORTEX, and began in 1994.

Its goal is to study the process of converting liquid into the tiny droplets in a fine spray, said Sven Bilen, now an electrical engineering and computer science research fellow, who managed the project while pursuing his doctorate.

"We're looking at a process called fluid atomization," Bilen said, adding that the experiment should provide information useful for applications ranging from fuel injection systems in combustion engines to asthmatic inhalers.

By collecting data from the experiment in space, the process can be studied under microgravity conditions, meaning larger droplets can be examined, Bilen said.

This mission will be the second attempt to perform the experiment, said Luis Bernal, an associate aerospace engineering professor who serves as the project's faculty adviser. He said VORTEX flew on a previous shuttle mission in January, but NASA failed to operate it correctly.

"We flew the same experiment in January of this year. There was a misunderstanding between the space shuttle crew and our instructions," Bernal said.

"NASA recognized that it was their problem, and so they are flying us again at no cost," he said. The cost for the first flight was $10,000, as part of a NASA program that allows small devices to be carried on shuttles for experiments.

Bilen said about 10 students made the trip to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to witness today's launch. Students also accompanied the delivery of the device to NASA in August, he said.

Bernal said the device had to go through an integration stage at that time, when NASA inspected it and prepared it for launch, and it has remained inside the shuttle for the past four months.

Endeavour's mission is scheduled to last 11 days, and data from the experiment should be available to students about a month later, "following a deintegration stage," Bilen said.

Bernal said the idea of putting a project into space is what first sparked students' interest in creating VORTEX.

"It started as some students who were interested in developing a project that could be flown in the space shuttle," Bernal said. "Aside from the scientific interest, there is the students' motivation of flying a project in space."

Endeavour's primary mission involves making America's first contribution to the new international space station Unity, and Bilen said the VORTEX project is fortunate to be on board this groundbreaking flight.

"We're excited to be part of this mission," Bilen said.

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