Volume XVI No. 1 Summer 2007 Aerospace Partnerships in Education ♦ Research ♦ Industry

MEMBER INSTITUTIONS

COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY

HAMPTON UNIVERSITY

OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY

NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER

NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTERNASA WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY

MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE CENTER

SCIENCE MUSEUM OF VIRGINIA

VIRGINIA AIR AND SPACE CENTER

STATE COUNCIL OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR VIRGINIA

VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM

VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

VIRGINIA’S CENTER FOR INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Inside this Issue . .

New NSF Project to Address Geospatial Workforce Needs

VGSC has recently been awarded a $150,000 planning grant by the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program (NSF-ATE) for the Geospatial Technician Education for Virginia Community Colleges (GTEVCC) project. The vision of the GTEVCC is to make Virginia’s Community Colleges the preferred source for geospatial technician educa-tion and geospatial workforce retraining in the Commonwealth. Project goals include:

• To fill workforce needs by providing a larger pool of skilled GIS technicians to Virginia’s businesses, industry and public agencies.

• To create a model curriculum in geospatial technician education for the Virginia Community College System (VCCS).

• To raise awareness and provide information and resources for students interested in careers in geospatial technology.

The project team is led by Mary Sandy and Chris Carter (VSGC), David Webb, Virginia Western Community College-VWCC, Rod-ney Clayton, Tidewater Community College-TCC, William Wyatt, John Tyler Community College-JTCC, and Gretchen Schmidt, Virginia Community College System- VCCS. The Virginia Geo-spatial Extension Program (VGEP) at Virginia Tech is also a

Continued on Page 10

3 Annual Student Research Conference and Luncheon4-5 FAA Competition Winners7 ITEST Teacher Workshops8-9 VSGC Scholarship and Fellowship 10 Mission Management Exploration12 STS 117 Launch

The April 16 tragedy at Virginia Tech occurred on the day of our Student Research Conference and Luncheon, with many Virginia Tech engineer-ing students present. We share in the grief and horror of our friends at Virginia Tech and also are inspired by the Hokie spirit that has surrounded the aftermath of this event. The Virginia

Tech Community very much remains in our thoughts. As I write this, I am preparing to travel to the launch of Space Shuttle Mission 117 and to educational meetings surrounding the launch. This mission will carry a Virginia Tech flag in memory of the students and faculty who so tragically lost their lives. Virginia Tech students and faculty who participate in Virginia Space Grant Consortium projects have been invited to attend the launch along with Dr. Charles Steger, Virginia Tech President, and our Board Chairman, and the President of the Virginia Tech student body.

I am one of several educational leaders from the Com-monwealth who have been invited to be present for the launch, participate in tours and activities at Kennedy Space Center, and meet with NASA managers to offer advice on how NASA can reach out to communities across the nation. There are many Virginia ties to this Shuttle mission. As I’m sure you know, this year the Commonwealth is celebrating the 400th anniversary of America’s Jamestown settlement. In tribute, the Space Shuttle will be carrying commemorative coins from the U.S. Mint and an artifact recently found at Jamestown. I have seen the artifact – a small metallic cargo tag that reads “Yames Towne.” It would have been used to denote the destination for goods bound for the settlement. It’s awe inspiring to think that this little piece of history that once traveled about 4000 miles aboard a small sailing vessel to America along with 17th century explorers and colonizers will now be traveling more than 4 million miles in space with 21st century explorers aboard America’s space ship.

This newsletter features some of the exciting programs we work with at the VSGC. We’re proud to announce the winners of the first FAA Airport Design Competition for Universities, and to count George Mason University and the University of Virginia among the honorees. We’re sharing background on some of the 67 students who have received a total of $286,500 in scholarships and fellowships this year.

The Director’s Corner

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VIRGINIA SPACE GRANT CONSORTIUMEmail: vsgc@odu.edu

Internet: http://www.vsgc.odu.edu600 Butler Farm Road, Suite 200, Hampton, VA 23666

OFFICE: (757) 766-5210 – FAX (757) 766-5205MarySandy

Director

ChrisCarterAssistant Director

JohnCompanionResearch Programs Manager

BrendaNeilProgram Manager

NickKoltunEducational Programs Specialist

JanetDotzauerProgram Specialist

BarbaraMannProgram Specialist

JudyMcGheeOffice Manager

SherryBehunProgram Assistant

DebbieRossAdministrative Assistant

ConnieBridgesAdministrativeAssistant

DebbieMurrayLARSS Program Coordinator

SarahPaulsLARSS Administrative Assistant

In 1988, Congress enacted the NASA National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program (also know as Space Grant). The Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) received its designation from NASA in 1989. The VSGC is a coalition of five Virginia colleges and universities, NASA, state educational agencies, Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, and other organizations with a strong interest in math, science, engineering and technology education and the preparation of a qualified high technology workforce. The VSGC acts as an umbrella organization, coordinating and developing educational and research efforts for Virginia and the nation.

VIRGINIA SPACE GRANT CONSORTIUM

Virginia Spacelink Editor: Brenda Neil

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Annual Student Research Conference Honors VSGC Scholarship and Fellowship Awardees

Dr. Mark Hinders, College of William and Mary Gives KeynoteAddress during Lun-cheon.

Christina McLane, Virginia Tech undergraduate re-views her research during the Poster Session with Chris Carter, VSGC’s Assistant Director.

On April 16, The College of William and Mary was the host for the annual VSGC Student Research Conference and Scholars-Fellows Luncheon. The Conference is a time when current VSGC Scholars and Fellows present the results of their research. This year’s Conference included oral presentations from 34 Graduate Fellows; 10 Under-graduate Scholars conducted poster presentations.

Graduate Fellow presentations were structured around five research areas including: Astrophysics and Planetary Science; Aerospace Systems Concept and Analysis; Structures and Materials; Applied Science; and Remote Sensing. Research topics were diverse and ranged from subjects like applied techniques for redesigning aerospace vehicles to a study of dark matter in the Milky Way to examining carbonaceous quartzites to determine if their features can be correlated with known fossil-bearing rocks that have been subjected to heat in the laboratory.

The Luncheon was sponsored by The College of William and Mary and was held in honor of all sixty-six VSGC Scholars and Fellows. The program began with open-ing remarks by Gene Nichol, President of The College of William and Mary. Dr. Mark Hinders, Professor of Applied Science at William and Mary, gave the keynote address, “A New Revised History of Fingerprinting.” A VSGC alumnus, Dr. Christian Wilson, spoke about his career with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and underscored the significance of his association with the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and its programs. Another alumnus, Nathanael Miller, spoke about the

impact of the VSGC award on his academic and career choices.

The annual VSGC Conference and Luncheon brings together students, faculty advisors and NASA and industry professionals for a day of networking and thought pro-voking discussions on concepts and research techniques. Comments from students were constructive and positive, “Overall, I was very pleased with my first experience at the conference. It was very nice to learn about research fields so different from my own.” An industry profes-sional said, “The students did an excellent job and this conference gives them the opportunity to develop as professionals in the field.”

VSGC Graduate Fellow Lizdabel Morales-Tirado, Ph.D candidate at Virginia Tech, presented her research during the Conference.

Attentive Audience During Research Presentation

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FAA Announces Winners of Airport Design Competition for Universitites

Continued on Page 5

Partnering organizations included:

American Association of Airport Executives Airport Consultants Council

Airports Council International – North America National Association of State Aviation Officials

Partners helped to develop Competition guidelines, provided members to serve as expert advisors to students, and assisted in proposal reviews.

During the past 2 years, the Virginia Space Grant Con-sortium (VSGC) had the pleasure to develop and manage the first Airport Design Competition for Universities for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Competition winners were recently selected and, much to our delight, include VSGC Consortium member, University of Vir-ginia, who won 3rd place through their Department of Systems and Information Engineering. San Jose State University, San Jose, Calf. and George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. captured first place awards. Eight other teams from across the U.S. also received awards.

The FAA created this competition to engage individual students or teams of students at U.S. universities working under the guidance of a faculty mentor to address airport operations and infrastructure issues and needs. Students were presented with a number of technical challenges relating to airport operations and maintenance, runway safety/runway incursions, and airport environmental interactions. The technical challenges embraced many

engineering and science disciplines and were often used as part of a design course. The Competition required students to reach out to airport operators and industry experts to advise them in their proposals and to help them assess the efficacy of their proposed designs/solutions. The Com- petition sought to provide a framework and incentives for quality educational experiences for college students and to raise student awareness of airports as a vital and interesting area for engineering and technology careers.

The FAA received 34 proposals from 16 colleges and universities. The vast majority of the work was done by student teams. The Competition opened on April 17, 2006 and closed on April 20, 2007. The winning proposals were selected by panels of FAA, industry and academic experts. Students from winning teams will equally divide prizes as follows: $2500 for first place, $1500 for sec-ond place, $1000 for third place and $500 for honorable mention. The first place teams will present their work at the American Association of Airport Executives annual meeting in Washington, DC on June 12.

Faculty and student evaluations of the Competition ex-perience cited the outstanding educational opportunity offered by working on real-world problems. They liked being challenged to propose innovative solutions and the impetus to interface with industry and government experts. As one faculty member noted, “For the majority of students, this was their first experience of working on a collaborative team design project in which different academic disciplines were represented and, as such, it was exciting to witness the student development in such a challenging, yet rewarding environment.” An-other faculty advisor noted the importance of creating “significant learning experiences outside the classroom which allow students to engage in ‘real-world’ issues and seek innovative ways in which to solve problems.” As one student commented, “…this hands-on experience with industry experts and front line managers has been priceless. It has really helped to open my eyes up to the variety of issues that an aerospace professional has to

(L-R) George Mason students, Kevin Durkee, Carl Smith, Peter Squire, faculty advisor Dr. Raja Parasuraman.

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FAA Winners Continued

look at on a daily basis…it has also opened my eyes up to a broader spectrum of opportunities in the aviation business world.”

The First place Award for Runway Safety was won by a student team from the Psychology Department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Dr. Raja Parasuraman was the team’s advisor. The students designed a system to address runway incursions called “Runway Incursion Monitoring and Direct Alert Systems (RIMDAS).” The Department of Aviation and Technology at San Jose State University, San Jose, CA. had the distinction of submitting first place winning team proposals for both Airport Operations and Maintenance and Airport Envi-ronmental Interactions. Their teams also garnered two honorable mentions. Dr. Triant Flouris was the teams’ faculty advisor. The Airport Operations and Maintenance top award was for a proposal titled, “Airport Communicator Software, ” which considered a software approach to integrating airport communications. The First Place winning team in Airport Environmental Interactions from San Jose State addressed the “Feasibility of Replacing Conventional Airport Lighting with Light Emitting Diodes.”

Other student team winners are:

Airport Operations and Maintenance Challenge:Honorable Mention – Department of Aviation and Tech-nology, San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif. Dr. Triant Flouris, Faculty Advisor.

Runway Safety/Runway Incursions Challenge:Second Place - The Departments of Aerospace, Indus-trial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga. Dr. Amy Pitchett and Daniel Bruneau, Faculty Advisors.

Third Place - Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. Dr. Barry Horowitz, Faculty Advisor.

Honorable Mentions: Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif. Dr. David Wilczynski, Faculty Advisor.

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth Minn. Dr. David Keranen, Faculty Advisor.

Department of Aviation and Technology, San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif. Dr. Triant Flouris, Advisor.

Airport Environmental Interactions Challenge:

Second Place - Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, Ala. Dr. Robert Peters and Nasim Uddin, Faculty Advisors.

Third Place - Department of Civil Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Ind. Dr. Michael Robinson, Faculty Advisor.

The FAA anticipates continuing the competition for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Additional information on the Competition can be found at: http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/design_competition.htm

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The Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) is pleased to announce the awarding of $286,500 in scholarships and fellowships to 67 students pursuing higher education at Virginia Space Grant Universities for the 2007-08 academic year.

Since the inception of the program in 1990, the Vir-ginia Space Grant Consortium has awarded nearly $3.6 million dollars in scholarships and fellowships to over 704 students.

Students in any field of study related to an understanding of aerospace are eligible, including but not limited to, engineering, science, math, computer science, physics, and technology. The students compete for the awards in a highly competitive application process.

VSGC provides monetary awards in four categories:

AerospaceGraduateResearchFellowships are $5,000 renewable awards (up to three years) of add-on graduate support for students enrolled at a Virginia Space Grant university pursuing any field of graduate study (Masters or Doctoral level) with aerospace relevance. VSGC awarded $225,000 in Graduate Research Fellowships to 45 students. The students’ universities contribute matching funds.

AerospaceUndergraduateResearchScholarships are one-year, non-renewable support of up to $8,500 for undergraduate students enrolled in a Virginia Space Grant university pursuing any field of study with aero-space relevance and actively engaged in a research project. VSGC awarded $42,500 in Undergraduate Research Scholarships to 6 students.

TeacherEducationScholarships are $1,000 awards given to students enrolled at a Virginia Space Grant university in a track that leads to teacher certification in a pre-college setting. VSGC awarded $10,000 in Teacher Education Scholarships to 10 students.

CommunityCollegeScholarships are $1,500 awards made to students enrolled at a Virginia community college, who have completed at least one semester of coursework and are pursuing a program of study that

includes coursework related to an understanding of or interest in technological fields supporting aerospace. VSGC awarded $9,000 in Community College Scholar-ships to 6 students.

Space Grant Scholars and Fellows must be engaged in an identified research project with a faculty advisor as part of their academic program. The awards, which are determined by a committee of Consortium representa-tives, are based on evaluation of the applicant’s research proposal, past scholastic achievement, and academic potential.

Students receiving awards present their research find-ings at an annual student research conference. The awards allow the students to actively engage in research during their academic careers, while providing support for their academic studies.

VSGC Scholarships and Fellowships Awarded

Note: See Scholarship and Fellowhship awardees photos on Page 8-9 of this issue.

Teacher Education Scholarship and Com-munity College Scholarship awardees will be featured in the next issue of SpaceLink.

For more information on VSGC Educational Programs or Scholarship and Fellowship Program Contact Chris Carter, Assistant Director. cxcarter@odu.edu or 757-766-5210

Link Up!

Subscribe to Virginia SpaceLink eNews

The SpaceLink is moving to an elec-tronic format for more timely and cost effective dissemination. We will continue limited print distribution, but hope our subscribers will elect to receive SpaceLink online.

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VSGC will conclude the successful ITEST program this summer with three class offerings. Since 2005, over 80 teachers from school systems in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk have taken advantage of these accelerated college courses to help them attain full endorsement in Earth Science. VSGC continues to partner with Portsmouth Public Schools, Old Dominion University, Norfolk State Uni-versity and Virginia Wesleyan College to make these courses available free of charge to teachers seeking the endorsement. Funding was secured for this project through the Virginia Department of Education.

The ITEST program promotes professional develop-ment for teachers and course content is aligned with the Virginia’s Science Standards of Learning (SOL). Co-instructing each course with a higher education faculty member is the ITEST Master Teacher, Amber Agee-De-hart, who is a fully-endorsed and current Earth Science teacher with Virginia Beach City Public Schools. The Master Teacher’s role is to assist the teacher participants in taking the course content and applying effective teach-ing strategies to provide instruction that helps students meet state standards.

Preliminary evaluations of the program indicate these courses have had a positive impact on the participating teachers’ ability to provide classroom instruction in Earth Science. The ITEST classes have been well attended and teachers are becoming fully endorsed in Earth Sci-ence as a result of their participation. Teachers involved in the ITEST program have become better prepared to implement standards-based activities and lessons in the classroom, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the content area.

Summer 2007 classes are still open. To apply, please submit the ITEST application from our web page (http://www.vsgc.odu.edu/itest ) to Nick Koltun, VSGC Edu-cational Program Specialist, by e-mail at nkoltun@odu.edu or by fax at (757) 766-5205.

OEAS402/502OceanographyLaboratoryandFieldExperimentsforTeachers

Earth Science Teachers Offered Free College Courses Through ITEST

In Partnership with Old Dominion University (ODU)Oceanography and Physics building on the campus of ODU

Dates:June25–July2,Monday through Friday, 9am – 5pmInstructors: Dr. John McConaugha and Amber Agee-Dehart

OEAS495GeologyofNationalParks(Web-basedcourse)In Partnership with Old Dominion University

Dates:June25–August12(face-to-face meetings with master teacher on July 10, 24, and August 7 at Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth, Virginia)Instructors: Dr. Terri Mathews and Amber Agee-Dehart

INST485MeteorologyforInstructorsIn partnership with Virginia Wesleyan CollegeDates:July9–26

Mondays and Thursdays,8:30am – 3:30pm at Woodrow Wilson High SchoolInstructors: Vanessa Murdock and Amber Agee-Dehart

ITEST Teachers Participate in Field Trip toGreat Falls P ark, Northern Virginia

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Jasper Lewis is a Ph.D. candi-date at Hampton University. His research topic is regional aerosol transport study using aircraft lidar.

Ronald Quinlan is a Ph.D. can-didate at the College of William and Mary. He is researching the synthesis, characterization and applications of carbon nanostruc-tures.

Meghan Snyder is a Master’s can-didate at the University of Virginia. Her research topic is the combus-tion efficiency of a scramjet en-gine measured using infrared laser absorption tomography.

Erin Reed is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. She is researching using the planar laser induced iodine fluorescence to investigate mixed rarefied con-tinuum regimes.

Meghan Revelle is a Ph.D. candi-date at the College of William and Mary. Her research topic is reverse-engineering software plans.

Matthew Bitzer is a Master’s candidate at Virginia Tech. His re-search objective is to manage and develop a scramjet test on a sound-ing rocket to ensure a successful launch in May 2009.

Luke Davis is a Master’s candidate at the College of William and Mary. He is researching novel approaches to the fabrication of silver, palladi-um, and copper surface-metallized, high performance polymer films.

Daniel Wik is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. His research topic is understanding the physics and observational effects of collisions between galaxy clusters.

Crystal Bertoncini is a Ph.D. candi-date at the College of William and Mary. Her research consists of devel-oping artificial intelligence programs for the interpretation of ultrasona-graphic data in the clinical practice of dentistry.

Joseph Batistelli is a Ph.D. candi-date at the University of Virginia. His research topic is the spatial distribution of autotrophic nitrifying bacteria in biofilms.

Jason Howison is a Master’s candi-date at the University of Virginia. His research involves combustion efficiency of a scramjet engine us-ing particle image velocimetry.

Michael Francis is a Ph.D. candi-date at the University of Virginia. His research topic is the hydrogen embrittlement in aluminum.

Congratulations Graduate Research Fellowship Winners

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Christina Haden is a Ph.D. candi-date at the University of Virginia. She is researching the development of an artificial excitable medium.

David Hubble is a Ph. D. candidate at Virginia Tech. He is research-ing the effect that the interaction of free stream turbulence with bound-ary layers has on convective heat transfer.

Joel Marcia is Master’s candidate at Old Dominion University. His research involves a compact ozone lidar for atmospheric ozone and aerosol measurements.

Christopher Spells is a Ph.D. can-didate at Hampton University. His research involves using CALIPSO to study the influence of the Saharon air layer on the development and inten-sity of Atlantic hurricanes.

Melissa Yesalusky is a Master’s candidate at Hampton University. Her research topic is the frequency and impact of nearly subvisual clouds on the spectral distribution of the infrared radiative cooling of the atmosphere.

Keith Moored is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. His research topic is Morphing Wing Technology.

Steven Anton is a Masters candidate at Virginia Tech. He is researching the development of a self-powered structural health monitoring system for air vehicles.

Alicia Saringer is a senior at Old Do-minion University. She is research-ing a deployable oblique wing for a hypersonic wave rider vehicle, for SOAREX.

Jonathan Conyers is a Senior at Virginia Tech. He is researching polyvinyl pyrrolidone polyhedral oligomeric silsesquloxane blends as potential sealants for creating ther-mally resistant barrier layers.

Amanda Chou is a Senior at Virginia Tech. Her research topic is the flex-ible matrix composite actuators for leading and trailing edge control.

Benjamin Winer is a Senior at the College of William and Mary. His research involves investigation of germlme stem cell differentiation and morphology using electron microsco-py, MALVE-MS, and TOR-SIMS.

Jesse Quinlan is a Junior at the University of Virginia. He is study-ing structural thermal analysis of a scramjet payload.

Amanda Smith is a Senior at the University of Virginia. She is researching simulation and analy-sis of the trajectory for the Hy-V scramjet flight experiment.

Congratulations Undergraduate Scholarship Winners

Nicole Gugliucci is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. Her research topic is low frequency, wide field Astronomy with PAPER: the precision array to probe the epoch of reionization.

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The Mission Management Initiative for Solar System Exploration program at NASA Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) will establish an end-to-end mission manage-ment and mission planning experience for university students. A competitive design review at WFF selected a proposal from Virginia Tech to move forward.

The Virginia Tech aerospace engineering team, comprised of 8 students and 7 faculty members, has designed a lunar mission to map the lunar magnetic field. The mission proposes an independent sub-satellite to be deployed from a larger lunar mission orbiter and will have a lifetime of about 86 days of orbit before its impact on the lunar surface. The science mission will use a magnetometer and an electron reflectometer to provide corrected magnetic field data with high accuracy. This data will complement that of the earlier Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which only covered approximately 25% of the lunar surface.

Mission Management for Solar System Exploration

The initial task for the team will be to develop a test payload to look at the mechanics of deploying the mag-netometer boom, which will be carried on a scientific balloon launch in the fall of 2007.

Balloon Payload from Wallops Flight Facility

NSF Grant AwardedContinued from Page 1

program partner. The team will use the planning grant period and funding to develop a full proposal for an ATE project to be submitted to the NSF in October 2008. This planning grant will permit the development of curriculum and criteria for how higher education should prepare students for success as a geospatial technician. Working groups have been established to address project components in the following areas: workforce needs, curriculum and formal education, professional development for faculty and teachers, web resources, sustainability of the program after NSF funding, career awareness, diversity, recruitment, and linkages to other ATE projects and centers.

The National Science Foundation’s Advanced Tech-nological Education (ATE) initiative invites proposals focusing on educating technicians for the high-tech-nology fields that drive our nation’s economy. Fund-ing supports curriculum development, professional development for college faculty and secondary school

teachers, and encourages career pathways from high school to two-year colleges and from two- year colleges to four-year institutions. ATE initiatives involve partnerships between academic institutions and potential employers to promote improvement of education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary school levels.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other geospatial technologies are computer-based and high technology tools capable of capturing, storing, analyzing and displaying geographic information (location on the earth’s surface) and linking that to other data sets (i.e. rainfall, pollution, demograph-ics, incidence of disease.) The power of GIS comes from its ability to present a wealth of information in a visual format. The demand for geospatial technol-ogy skills is rising across many disciplines and GIS technologies are considered one of the three most important emerging and evolving technologies by the US Department of Labor.

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The Virginia Tech CanSat aerospace engineering team has submitted a project proposal to NASA’s Exploration Science Mission Directorate (ESMD). On May 7, the team, comprised of 8 Virginia Tech students, presented their final design of the CanSat and all current data on subsystem testing to the Critical Design Review com-mittee. Changes between the preliminary and final designs were also illustrated.

The final CanSat design meets all the competition require-ments and aims to complete all required and bonus tasks. Feedback from the CanSat judges was very positive. The team is lead by Dr. Chris Hall, professor of Aerospace Engi-neering at Virginia Tech.

Student Teams Design, Build and Launch Projects Funded by NASA’s Exploration System Misson Directorate (ESMD)

Old Dominion University Mars Plane

Virginia Tech CanSat

The competition brings together student teams from around the world to see whose design best meets the mis-sion requirements for design-build-launch. It is intended to give students the opportunity to experience a hands-on space program at an affordable cost and involves writing a mission proposal, designing and launching a payload and preparing a post-mission summary. Team members gain an understanding of the processes that go into the development of any successful project that will apply throughout their professional careers.

Final integration and testing of the Virginia Tech CanSat still needs to be completed before the official launch. Subsystems for flight control, imaging, altitude estima-tion, and onboard computing are performing well. A full mock-competition will prepare all the team members before the actual National Competition, which will be held in Amarillo, Texas this June.

For more information, contact John Companion, VSGC Research Programs Manager, jcompani@odu.edu, 757-766-5210

The Old Dominion University design team has investi-gated the feasibility of a reusable Mars exploration vehicle powered by compressed carbon dioxide. Fifteen ODU students, under the direction of Dr. Bob Ash, are work-ing on the project. The Martian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and by employing a thermoelectrically cooled pressure tank during the Mars night, the vehicle can produce CO

2 ice. When the resulting ice is heated

to temperatures on the order of 300 K inside the collec-tion tank, a supercritical fluid is created that can be used for propulsion. Much of the work this semester was focused on vehicle concepts that could carry a large solar array to produce the electrical power required for the vehicle, produce a large lift-to-drag ratio and enable the vehicle to land and take off repeatedly. The aircraft wing area was maximized, and blown flaps were recommended during the terminal flight

phase, along with drag brakes to minimize the landing speed. An elliptical plan form was selected because it was capable of reasonably high lift-to-drag ratios while sustaining stable aerodynamic control at very low flight speeds. Finally, recommendations have been made for the structural materials to be used on the airplane.

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STS 117 Blasts Off from the Kennedy Space Center On June 8 for a trip to the International Space Station.

Left to Right - Randy Wynne (Virginia Tech) and his children, Sean Seaman, Laura Jones, Astronaut Leland Melvin, Devon Kenwor-thy, Hannah Joyce, Melissa Harnist, Susan Magliaro and Terry Wildman at STS 117 Edu-cational Forum.

STS 117 LaunchJune 8, 2007

Mary Sandy, VSGC Director, was invited by NASA to participate in the Pre-launch Education Forum and other STS 117ac-tivities on June 8, 2007 prior to the launch. One former LARSS student, two USRP students and two VSGC-sponsored teacher education students from Vir-ginia Tech, as well as other Virginia Tech faculty and staff, were also invited to participate in the activites.

Left to Right - Students Devon Kenworthy, Hanna Joyce, Astronaut Leland Melvin, Laura Jones, Sean Seaman and Melissa Harnist.