Blasting into space

Student project to ride on space shuttle

Six students are standing at NASA today, awaiting the moment the space shuttle Endeavor launches with one of their projects.

The first product designed by University students ever to travel into space, the Vortex Ring Transit Experiment will ride in the space shuttle that leaves Earth today and bring back information that could help the medical, and aerospace engineering fields.

The VORTEX, a three-year-old project headed by Engineering graduate student Sven Bilen, is a fluid physics experiment that examines liquid atomization.

SARA STILLMAN/Daily Members of the Vortex project, Amber Thweatt, Avik Basu, Dan Kocevski, Sven Bilen, John Korsakas and faculty adviser Dr. Luis Bernal, are awaiting the launch of their project today.

"It's a great idea," said Luis Bernal, an associate professor of aerospace engineering and researcher in micro-gravity and fluid physics. "It's important for students to have hands-on engineering experience. These kids had to present documents to NASA to justify their experiment. It's a unique experience for Engineering students. I don't think many student projects end up being this successful."

The VORTEX will use silicone oil to look at how liquids change atomically in the absence of gravity. In the experiment, a small piston will suck in some of the oil and then will be pushed upwards, creating what is called a vortex ring.

A certain amount of force will cause the ring to break free from the surface and form a large droplet, which will demonstrate liquid atomization. Atomization is a process that produces small droplets of the liquid. Inert gas atomization is used in powder metallurgy to perfect the science of metal work.

"This needs to be done in space to eliminate the effect of gravity," Bilen said. "On Earth, small droplets of surface tension is the primary force, but gravity dominates, interfering with what to look at. In space, surface tension will be the dominant force, gravity would not. Another benefit to space is that because of the absence of gravity, the droplets are big enough to see what is happening."

The students said they were enthusiastic about the potential for their project to make a difference in society.

After VORTEX collects 10 hours of data in space, it will bring back information that will lead to real-world applications for the future, including ideas about fuel atomization. The data from this experiment also could benefit the medical world.

"This could be a great application for drug delivery," Bilen said. "One use is in inhalers. This way the doctor could inject droplets of medication into the affected organ, and the drug could metabolize directly into the area."

For the project, the University bought from NASA a canister that will hold VORTEX. The students built everything else on their own.

Engineering senior John Korsakas was the chief programmer.

"There was a lot of pressure," Korsakas said. "We were supposed to present to NASA in the middle of October and then they called at the end of September to tell us that we had to present now or else we weren't going up."

A lot of work had to be accomplished in a short amount of time and the group of students pulled four all-nighters to complete the project, students said.

Amber Thweatt, a recent Engineering graduate, said it was exciting to be involved in a real shuttle project.

"I started being a part of the project as a freshman," Thweatt said. "It's great to see from start to launch under my undergraduate career here at Michigan."

In order for the space program to allow the experiment on the shuttle, it cannot draw any energy or resources from the shuttle. It must be self-sufficient except for the moment before the astronauts go to sleep when they turn the machine on. Ten hours later, the experiment will be shut down by the astronauts.

Meanwhile, the six University students will anxiously await the return of their experiment.

"If it works, I will be happy," Korsakas said. "It will work."

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