Fourth years team up with NASA to measure cosmic radiation

Beyond the clinical, unassuming exterior of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering lab, fourth year Emily Snavely, as well as two other UVA students in Professor Goyne’s spacecraft design class, are shooting for the stars – literally.

For nearly two years, Goyne’s students have been working with a $50,000 grant from NASA to design and construct a payload that will measure cosmic radiation in near-space.

Data the students collect will be compared against simulations run at NASA Langley and will aid in avoiding high-dose radiation.

The radiation they’re hoping to get the drop on is generated by cosmic rays, and is so powerful that the only way to stay fully protected is to be underground – something Professor Goyne mentions is one of the largest obstacles to Mars exploration.

While laypeople are sheltered by the atmosphere and Earth’s magnetic field, commercial and military pilots flying at high altitudes and astronauts manning spacecrafts are exposed to high levels.

A single trans-pacific flight can expose a pilot to as much radiation as a chest x-ray, and pilots are exposed to more radiation than any other occupation, including workers at nuclear power plants.

Integral to this project is the innovative use of a smartphone as an onboard computer. Those of us wrapped up in the eternal Apple vs Android debate will be either excited or bitterly disappointed to hear that the hardware chosen is a Samsung Galaxy.

The choice of the Android was less specs based and more practical – the Android app design is slightly easier to work with and allows for less restricted app hosting, which was pivotal to a project where the students programmed their own apps, tested them on their personal phones, and then were able to upload them to the phone that serves as the onboard computer – dubbed the “flight phone.”

Smartphones are particularly well-suited to this kind of data collection because they’re equipped with all kinds of sensors – the same sensors that allow us to Snapchat with an MPH filter, use our phones as levels when decorating our apartments, or track our speed and altitude on ski trips. Those aspects programmed differently can collect data from the atmosphere.

The two cameras are also a plus, but instead of snapping accidental double-chin selfies, they’re drawing data at 120,000 feet.

In addition to the phone cameras, there’s also a go-pro mounted on the team’s payload taking a picture every 30 seconds, some of which you can check out on the team’s Twitter page, @JefferSatUVA.

The phone and Go-Pro are mounted in the team’s payload, which is comprised of 3D printed parts in bright orange and blue plastics that the team printed themselves in the lab on grounds.

Emily and Professor Goyne were kind enough to show me around the lab, where their prototype sits surrounded by 3D printed pieces varying from functional wrenches to a toy elephant with moving legs.

3D printing allows the team to create custom-made pieces without the high costs of ordering parts out. The plastics are both durable and extremely light, which aids in keeping the weight down on NASA’s gondola, which is the size of a small Fiat and holds several projects.

The UVA team is the only undergraduate team sending up a payload on this flight.

Once all the pieces are in place, the payload is insulated in a styrofoam cooler, not unlike our disposable Foxfield coolers, with some aluminum foil for added warmth.

The gondola should be launching any day now. This morning marks the fourth canceled launch due to weather, including high winds and impending rain.

While the forecast on the ground at their New Mexico launch site might be still, dry, and warm, the weather this launch is worried about occurs much further up in the atmosphere, outside the purview of local weathermen.

The canceled launches have led at least one student to keep a suitcase in the lab, as the team needs to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Given the right weather conditions, another launch will be attempted later this week, and the NASA balloon should float for between six and twenty hours over the American southwest.

Students can watch the launch live and follow the payload’s journey in real time.

Professor Goyne plans to continue looking for projects like this one for his spacecraft design students, and hopes to eventually do an orbital flight with a student-designed spacecraft.

As for Emily, she plans to head into the industry following graduation, though space travel is probably not in her immediate future.

“I’m an Aerospace engineer,” she says, “but I’m afraid of heights.”