ThinSats, Space Science, & STEM Outreach at American University.
Abstract
American University (AU), with the participation of five local high and middle schools, plans to fly three educational experiments probing the Extreme Low Earth Orbit (ELEO) environment on a small, stacked cluster of three ThinSats. Each ThinSat represents a small satellite, comparable in dimensions to a piece of toast. The ThinSat cluster is scheduled to fly in late-spring 2019 on an Orbital ATK resupply mission for the International Space Station (ISS). Our ThinSat cluster will be part of a total of 84 ThinSats launched on the ISS resupply mission. These ThinSats represent a secondary payload to the primary mission. ThinSats will be dispensed from the Antares rocket upper stage into ELEO at approximately 250 km above the Earth and remain in orbit for only 5-10 days.
The AU-team represents AU undergraduate students, largely from Physics, plus students from H.D. Woodson High School and Hardy Middle School in DC, and St. Elizabeth Catholic School in MD. Additional students from other local schools participate through educational STEM outreach. One experiment is an inexpensive charged particle detector, built by AU students. This detector consists of a scintillating plastic volume coupled to a silicon photomultiplier. The remaining two experiments use a common XinaBox X-chip. This X-chip contains a set of 3-axis magnetometer, accelerometer, and gyro sensors, and is similar to electronic chips contained in most cell-phones. The two X-chip experiments are aimed at determining if it is possible to obtain reliable magnetic field measurements of the Earth, and determining the atmospheric physical density and "drag" versus altitude in ELEO. NASA's magnetic test facility at Goddard Space Flight Center will be used to calibrate the magnetic field sensor and account for field due to the spacecraft. A progress report of our activities will be presented.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED33C1098B
- Keywords:
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- 0805 Elementary and secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0815 Informal education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0845 Instructional tools;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION