NASA to launch students' satellite into space this fall By Robert Gold Daily Staff Reporter Demonstrating the College of Engineering's close ties to the national space program, a squad of University students have designed and constructed from start to finish a satellite that NASA will launch into space later this fall. Yesterday, Engineering faculty members and some of the 100 students who have worked on the project since September 1998 displayed the satellite and explained its use after a luncheon in the Space Physics Research Lab on North Campus. "You are more enthusiastic and a lot more responsive than a lot of our contractors," NASA's chief investigator for the project Les Johnson said at the event. The mechanism is the first-ever satellite fully produced by students at the University. Electrical engineering and space sciences associate Prof. Brian Gilchrist said only a few schools have developed similar student satellites. The 20-kilogram satellite - about the size of a personal computer - is part of a larger NASA project used to investigate new space technologies. Gilchrist's connections to NASA helped get the students involved in the process. Gilchrist and other engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntville, Ala., have created a system that may give birth to space navigation without the use of fuel. They designed a tether that will act as a conductor to generate energy from the Earth's magnetic field. Using this equipment, solar energy will be the source for downward propulsion, Gilchrist said. The tether project, named the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System, has a $7 million budget, Johnson said. NASA officials wanted a satellite to gather data on the tether's movement, but a tight bud- LOUIS BROWN/Daily Icarus Student Program Manager Jane Ohlweiler (right) shows a satellite built by Engineering students to Vice President for Research Fawwaz Ulaby, NASA Investigator Les Johnson and electrical engineering and space sciences associate Prof. Brian Gilchrist yesterday at the Space Physics Research Lab. get limited their options. That's when Gilchrist stepped in. Gilchrist recommended a space systems design class at the University. NASA budgeted $230,000 for the student assignment and various University departments contributed about $70,000. "I suggested to NASA we could provide cheap labor for" the project, Gilchrist said. Toiling in the University's Space Physics Research Laboratory and garnering expertise from many faculty members, students have spent as much as 30 hours per week each on the project. The 15-member class began designing the satellite on paper during the fall semester of 1998, and NASA accepted the group's proposal last January. While the satellite is a benefit to NASA, many students emphasized the project's impact on them. "This has been one of the craziest but best experiences I've ever had," student program manager and Engineering graduate student Jane Ohlweiler said, adding that about two-thirds of the participants have been volunteers. "These are much wiser people than a year ago," Gilchrist said, explaining that the students dealt with "real work pressure and deadlines and problems." Johnson said the kind of work experience students got by working on this project is rare to their field of interest. "It usually takes five to 10 years from inception to flight," Johnson said. The project team will hand over the finished project to the Marshall Space Flight Center on March 1. Currently, the project is in the "integration stage," Gilchrist said. Johnson said recent NASA failures have had an impact on the Icarus project - the students' name for the program. Marshall Space Flight Center Director Art Stephenson wrote the report detailing the failed landing of the Mars Polar Lander. Johnson said Stephenson has increased the regulations the students had to follow for their project. "NASA has constantly been watching our design," Ohlweiler said. "We don't get any special treatments." The satellite is scheduled for launch on the Delta II rocket this fall at the NASA air station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Engineering senior Steven Lanzisera, who designed the mechanism's power distribution systems, said he won't be nervous on the day of the launch. "We know the system better than anyone else," Lanzisera said. Originally on page 1A in the 1-27-2000 issue of the Daily.