Session
Technical Session XII: The Next Generation
Abstract
Colorado Space Grant Consortium's (COSGC) newest sounding rocket payload program, RocketSat, has been in development since 2005. By 2008, COSGC had developed a body of knowledge on building sounding rocket payloads that had reached a level it was ready to pass on to other students across the nation. Taking the lessons learned from three years of experience and three suborbital flights, COSGC faculty and students developed a standard payload to characterize the flight environment and measure radiation on the flight trajectory. The construction of this standard payload was turned into the RockOn workshop through a partnership with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), NASA Education, the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant consortia. Over the course of the 6-day, hands-on RockOn workshop, university students and faculty build and test a fully functional sounding rocket payload and watch their payloads launch on a Terrier-Improved Orion to an altitude of approximately 70 miles. The payloads are then recovered, and participants analyze their flight data. The first RockOn launch was June 25, 2008, and since then two more workshop and launches have occurred in 2009 and 2010, with another scheduled in 2011. In an effort to continue this learning process, the canisters (RockSat Payload Canisters) used to streamline integration of the RockOn payloads are offered to universities at a fraction of the cost of the launch vehicle costs. This provides students across the United States with a standard interface and relatively inexpensive flight opportunity once a year to launch their payloads, building on the initial knowledge gained from the RockOn workshop. This student-managed national program organized at COSGC is known as RockSat and has flown 21 payloads from 11 universities on three sounding rocket flights in 2008, 2009, and 2010, with another 9 payloads scheduled to launch in 2011. The goal of RockSat is to foster the continued learning about the process of engineering and design after the RockOn Workshop with an original payload, as opposed to a predesigned payload. In 2010, WFF and COSGC began developing the RockSat-X program. Like RockSat, RockSat-X is a national, student-managed program. The biggest difference between RockSat and RockSat-X is that the latter provides full access to the space environment, power and telemetry, and the possibility to eject sub payloads. The first launch of RockSat-X is in July 2011. Students that partake in the RockOn Workshop and/or RockSat-C and X programs gain a level of hands-on learning unlike anything the classroom can provide. In addition to providing invaluable training with physical payloads, these programs have proven to be an excellent test bed for small satellite technology as student teams take off with original mission ideas. The next step is to further develop RockSat-C and RockSat-X payloads into small student satellites intended for orbit and create a program, through partnerships with WFF and others, to launch them on a consistent basis.
Presentation Slides
RockOn and RockSat: A NASA and COSGC Collaboration to Train Tomorrow's Engineers
Colorado Space Grant Consortium's (COSGC) newest sounding rocket payload program, RocketSat, has been in development since 2005. By 2008, COSGC had developed a body of knowledge on building sounding rocket payloads that had reached a level it was ready to pass on to other students across the nation. Taking the lessons learned from three years of experience and three suborbital flights, COSGC faculty and students developed a standard payload to characterize the flight environment and measure radiation on the flight trajectory. The construction of this standard payload was turned into the RockOn workshop through a partnership with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF), NASA Education, the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant consortia. Over the course of the 6-day, hands-on RockOn workshop, university students and faculty build and test a fully functional sounding rocket payload and watch their payloads launch on a Terrier-Improved Orion to an altitude of approximately 70 miles. The payloads are then recovered, and participants analyze their flight data. The first RockOn launch was June 25, 2008, and since then two more workshop and launches have occurred in 2009 and 2010, with another scheduled in 2011. In an effort to continue this learning process, the canisters (RockSat Payload Canisters) used to streamline integration of the RockOn payloads are offered to universities at a fraction of the cost of the launch vehicle costs. This provides students across the United States with a standard interface and relatively inexpensive flight opportunity once a year to launch their payloads, building on the initial knowledge gained from the RockOn workshop. This student-managed national program organized at COSGC is known as RockSat and has flown 21 payloads from 11 universities on three sounding rocket flights in 2008, 2009, and 2010, with another 9 payloads scheduled to launch in 2011. The goal of RockSat is to foster the continued learning about the process of engineering and design after the RockOn Workshop with an original payload, as opposed to a predesigned payload. In 2010, WFF and COSGC began developing the RockSat-X program. Like RockSat, RockSat-X is a national, student-managed program. The biggest difference between RockSat and RockSat-X is that the latter provides full access to the space environment, power and telemetry, and the possibility to eject sub payloads. The first launch of RockSat-X is in July 2011. Students that partake in the RockOn Workshop and/or RockSat-C and X programs gain a level of hands-on learning unlike anything the classroom can provide. In addition to providing invaluable training with physical payloads, these programs have proven to be an excellent test bed for small satellite technology as student teams take off with original mission ideas. The next step is to further develop RockSat-C and RockSat-X payloads into small student satellites intended for orbit and create a program, through partnerships with WFF and others, to launch them on a consistent basis.
