Auburn University Student Space Program

Overview of AUSSP

• Auburn University Student Space Program

• Made of two groups– Auburn High Altitude Balloon (AHAB)

– AubieSat-1

• Directed by Dr. JM Wersinger

• Housed in Allison Lab

• Funded by Alabama Space Grant Consortium

Space Grant Consortium • Part of NASA

• Started in 1989

• National network comprised of over 850 affiliates

• Support fellowships and scholarships for STEM students

• Alabama’s is housed in Huntsville and headed by Dr. John Gregory

Workforce Development

• Over 250 students have participated and entered the workforce

• Great opportunity for hands on experience

• Students develop leadership, technical, team working, and management skills

Aubie-Sat 1

Overview of AubieSat-1

• Auburn’s first student built satellite• Developed as a workforce development program• Considered a CubeSat (10 cm cube)• Calpoly deals with launch vehicle integration• Science mission to measure properties of

ionosphereic plasma and relate that to solar activity

• All subsystem electronics custom made in house

Technical Overview

• Command and Data Handling

• Electrical Power

• Primary Communications

• Secondary Communications

• Attitude Control and Determination

• Ground Station

Ground Station

What we do

• Design

• Build

• Test

• Integrate

Future of AubieSat-1

• 30% of hardware still to be built

• 80% of the subsystems still need to be integrated

• Functional and Environmental testing

• Build Flight Version

AHABAuburn’s High Altitude Balloon team

Overview of AHAB• Workforce development program• AHAB students design, build, test and launch balloon-

craft to the edge of space, nearly 100,000 feet above sea level.

• The balloon-craft carry experiments that collect science and other technical data.

• They are used to test satellite components in near-space conditions, to collect atmospheric, and space data and to study the behavior of balloon craft during flight.

Overview of AHAB

Technical Overview• Command and Data Handling

– Controls the camera and data logging functions• Communications

– Designs a system that allows constant contact with balloon during flight

• Structure– Designs and builds housing for electrical components– In charge of ensuring FCC rules are followed (under 6 lb per

payload)• Power

– Supplies all subsystems with required power for functionality

Outreach and Science• Outreach

– Keep contact with high schools to get them involved in our program and Auburn

– Sent up high school science experiments with our payload

– High school students came numerous times to our lab

– Came to launch

Science• Produce science analysis reports after each launch• Produce graphs (temp vs time, pressure vs time, humidity vs time,

temp vs pressure)• Produce reports to show launch predictions and launch results

Launch—Spring 2009

Launch—Spring 2009

Launch—Spring 2009

Why should you get involved• Great hands on experiences

• Experience in design and build process

• Understanding integrating multiple systems

• Internship opportunities

• Pride in Auburn University

• Having something you built orbiting the Earth

Participants

• Students– Volunteers– Students taking it as a physics class– Engineering Senior Design students (ME, ECE, SECS)– Industrial Engineering students– Approximately 25 Students per semester

• Faculty Advisors (Physics, ECE, ME, Software Eng.)

• Technical advisors (retired senior managers)

Questions?Contact:

Dr. JM Wersinger: wersinger@physics.auburn.edu

Aubie-Sat—Jeffrey Driggers: jld0002@auburn.edu

AHAB—Mallory Garver: mlg0002@auburn.edu