Copyright Interesting Engineering
A group of undergraduate students in the US has just built a mini satellite that’s about to launch into orbit, in order to help NASA unlock novel insights into how the sun shapes space weather. The small but mighty spacecraft, known as a CubeSat, was built by students and scientists from Sonoma State University, Howard University, and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), which led the project. It will reportedly collect vital data to support NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission. It is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base no earlier than November 10. The CubeSat will travel to the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere to study the solar wind. The data it collects will help improve space weather forecasting and protect technology in space and on Earth, such as communication networks, GPS, and power grids, from potentially damaging solar flares. Tracking the solar wind Noé Lugaz, PhD, a research professor in physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire, said the project offers UNH students a unique opportunity to gain real-world experience. It also allows them to collaborate with peers nationwide to design every part of the space mission, including the instrument, the software that will operate it in space, and the antenna and radio that will command the satellite once it’s in orbit. “The experience is invaluable and can open doors to future opportunities in space-related or other science and engineering careers,” Lugaz highlighted. Called 3UCubed, the satellite is roughly the size of a loaf of bread. It is equipped with instruments that measure oxygen density and electron precipitation in the thermosphere, located above the mesosphere and below the exosphere. Once it reaches the thermosphere, which is the region where many satellites and the International Space Station orbit, it will gather measurements that will later be analyzed alongside data from the IMAP mission. These insights are expected to deepen the scientists’ understanding of how the thermosphere in the auroral and cusp regions responds to particle precipitation and changing conditions driven by the solar wind. Data for NASA research The project brought together about 70 students from all three universities. It was essential for predicting how solar storms and bursts of energy from the sun can disrupt communication systems, GPS networks, and power grids on Earth. The team spent five years building the satellite. “It was fascinating to learn about so many new subjects about space science and instrumentation that I had never studied before,” Alex Chesley ’22, a mechanical engineering graduate from UNH and member of the 3UCubed mission team, explained. “The experience with the 3UCubed mission helped with my professional growth, and it was definitely valuable to have, no matter what industry you end up working in,” Chelsey concluded in a press release. Chesley currently works as a configuration engineer at STS Aerospace in Laconia. He designed the satellite’s initial CAD model and specification list for its altitude control system. The mission aims to understand how the upper atmosphere responds to solar wind, which is a continuous stream of charged particles, primarily protons and electrons, that are released from the sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. It should help refine models of how space weather events evolve. It will also shed light on how they affect the balance between solar radiation and Earth’s magnetic field.
