EDUCATION SPOTLIGHT: Florida Tech Receives $60,000 Grant from NASA for Cubesat Proposal

Florida Tech was one in all simply eight universities to be chosen for this initiative

BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – A brand new college grant might result in breakthrough analysis for scientists trying to perceive the terrain of the moon and planets.

A proposal from Paula do Vale Pereira, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, was chosen for funding as a part of NASA’s College Nanosatellite Program.

The $60,000 grant, which runs from Could via August, supplies college students with techniques engineering coaching, getting ready them to work within the house business whereas concurrently enhancing small satellite tv for pc experience amongst school at U.S. universities.

Florida Tech was one in all simply eight universities to be chosen for this initiative; almost two dozen utilized.

Pereira and her workforce of 4 pupil researchers will look at the necessities and elements wanted for the satellite tv for pc. Pereira and her workforce’s long-term purpose is to construct a small satellite tv for pc bearing particular sensors to orbit the moon and research floor terrain.

The sensors will scan the terrain in infrared, seen and ultraviolet spectra and can match that knowledge with moon regolith samples from that very same space collected throughout upcoming Artemis missions.

By correlating the spectrum of the sunshine mirrored on the moon’s floor to laboratory knowledge of the collected samples, the workforce will have the ability to create a “dictionary” – known as Floor Fact – that matches reflection patterns to particular soil compositions.

“If now we have sufficient satellite tv for pc knowledge and sufficient of that floor matching knowledge, then by simply capturing footage of far-away planets, moons or asteroids we might have the ability to get this dictionary and use it to estimate the composition of these our bodies” Pereira stated. “Based mostly on how they’re reflecting daylight, we might have the ability to inform what the floor is made out of.”

Pereira, a member of the Small Satellite tv for pc Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, selected to make use of a CubeSat to review the moon’s floor for a number of causes. In comparison with regular satellites, the smaller and comparatively standardized CubeSats are a cost-efficient possibility.

They’re additionally gentle, so launching them to orbit the moon is comparatively low cost. Being nearer to the moon, the satellites would have the ability to collect detailed knowledge in a method {that a} telescope from Earth wouldn’t have the ability to attributable to ambiance and distance.

With giant telescopes just like the James Webb Area Telescope focusing their efforts on deep house exploration, the CubeSat appeared like a very good companion to assist us perceive extra concerning the universe, she stated.

The summer time program entails varied occasions past the lab. There was a two-day kickoff assembly on the Kennedy Area Heart in Could. The coed researchers will then intern on the Air Power Analysis Lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and return to campus in July the place they’ll do extra analysis on the satellite tv for pc. Within the first week of August, Pereira and the researchers will journey to Utah for a convention associated to the analysis.

For Pereira, doubtlessly sending a spacecraft to the moon has her excited concerning the findings the mission may yield – and in addition concerning the experiences for her college students alongside the best way.

“I see so many college students across the college who’re so enthusiastic about house, wanting to construct and work on space-related {hardware}, and so they don’t have that many alternatives,” Pereira stated. “Having the ability to present one alternative to them — it’s a small variety of college students, however no less than some college students — and seeing them have that have may be very significant to me.”

After this grant is accomplished, Pereira hopes to use for a bigger, two-year grant that covers the event and launch prices of the satellite tv for pc.

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