ASCEND!
2011-2012 Important Dates
- November 18, 2011: Workshop/Launch activities at the Clarion Hotel in Phoenix.
- November 19, 2011: ASCEND Launch Day.
- March 30, 2012: Workshop/Launch activities at the Clarion Hotel in Phoenix.
- March 31, 2012: ASCEND Launch Day.
Background
"ASCEND!", (Aerospace STEM Challenges to Educate New Discoverers), is an Arizona Space Grant Consortium statewide Workforce Development program, designed to involve undergraduate students from across Arizona in the full "design-build-fly-operate-analyze" cycle of a space mission. Across our state, student teams (from UA, ASU, NAU, ERAU, SMCC, PCC NW--and in FY2011 Glendale Community College (GCC) and Dine College teams will join the group) will design and build small payloads for launch from high altitude weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters as a function of altitude up to about 100,000 feet and to obtain a series of timed images of the Earth throughout the balloon ascent to characterize surface features, cloud structure and the Earth's curvature. Participation in this program is geared to complement regular classroom learning by offering direct hands-on immersion with the full mission cycle. Few NASA or aerospace industry scientists and engineers ever take a project through the full mission cycle.
ASCEND! payload requirements
Each payload must contain an imaging component interfaced with a tracking device (altitude, latitude/longitude). In addition, atmospheric experiments may be determined by each university design team, depending upon its own goals determined in consultation with program consultants and mentors. Additional and/or alternative innovative engineering or science projects which are not related to an atmospheric study but which could benefit from the high altitude/low temperature environment (for example, testing the reliability of power cells under low temperature and low pressure conditions) are encouraged, subject to weight, size and cost restrictions determined for the project and the viability of the experiments in the extremes of the upper atmospheres where temperatures drop to -60 or -70 C, and atmospheric pressures are nearly negligible.
Design tasks include:
Building a light-weight mechanically and thermally stable container for the experiments.
Correlating the data from your design package with the standard ANSR launch package (ie., at a minimum your data/experiment must have a clock/timestamp that is synchronized with the ANSR clock) to allow correlation of the images and any atmospheric data with altitude and geographic location with appropriate timing circuits and self-contained power supplies to drive all components of the package.
It is also desirable for your team to monitor and record telemetry for the balloon payload.
Operations
All costs (within a specified budget) will be provided for the project. Each semester, teams will congregate in central Arizona for Friday evening pre-launch training workshops, followed by Saturday launch and chase-down activities. The teams will have opportunities meet with representatives from our ANSR launch providers and teams from other participating universities, once or twice a semester. During these meetings--generally held as telecons--participants may ask questions, share experiences and present their ideas for peer response. In April, at the end of each program year, team members will present the results of their year's ASCEND! research and development projects at the statewide Arizona/NASA Undergraduate Research Internship Program Symposium in a topical session devoted to high altitude balloon science.
ASCEND! Program Websites
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