Space Physics at Dartmouth -- LaBelle Group | Dartmouth Balloon Group | Theoretical Group
Green Cube
The undergraduates of the Lynch Rocket Lab, with the help from some professors and professionals, are constructing a
payload similar to the CubeSat, which is a small satellite prototype established by CalPoly and Stanford Universities.
Similar satellites have been used by many other universities and student satellite programs because of its relatively
easy and inexpensive design. Our group is developing a payload that is effectively three of these CubeSats combined
spatially, so that we are not limited by the 100 sq. cm. of the prototype. In June 2008 our payload will fly on a
bursting balloon that should reach approximately 90,000 ft. in the air before falling back to earth with a parachute. The
total flight should take approximately two hours.
Our payload will carry several instruments, including a GPS, a magnetometer, and several thermocouples. Our circuitry and interface board will convert the analog inputs of these instruments into digital information, then formatting and sending out a synchronous data stream. We hope to keep in constant communication with our payload using a HAM radio sending data continuously.
Before launching, we will use a program developed by Edge of Space Sciences (www.eoss.org) to determine its probable course due to the current weather. We will track our balloon and payload using the GPS information we receive until the payload drops below the horizon of contact with the HAM receivers. Our payload will have an Emergency Locater Transmitter so that we will be able to track and locate the payload when it hits the ground.
Our science goals for this flight are quite simple. Our largest goal is to keep in constant communication with the payload during its full flight. We want to make sure that all of our instruments work properly throughout the flight and that we can collect and understand the data sent throughout the flight. This balloon flight is designed as an infrastructure test for our prototype, though, and our real science concerns are longer term.
Our long-term science goals take two forms. Our cubesat prototype will hopefully be applicable for the Lynch Rocket Lab's auroral sounding rockets and Robyn Millan's balloon research. For the Lynch Rocket Lab, we are interested in a sounding rocket involving the release of approximately 8 small sub payloads from a main payload sounding rocket to be flown from Poker Flat Alaska. This mission would be for the investigation of the k-spectrum of density irregularities in the auroral ionosphere, for which we will substitute plasma density probes for the thermocouples. Before flying the small payloads on a sounding rocket, though, our next step will to launch it from a student launch rocket.