ASCEND!
Faculty Mentor Name
Yabin Liao
Format Preference
Poster
Abstract
ASCEND! (Aerospace STEM Challenges to Educate New Discoverers) is an Arizona Space Grant Consortium statewide workforce development program organized under NASA’s Space Grant consortium. The ASCEND! program challenges undergraduate students from across the state to design, build, test, and launch small payloads aboard a high-altitude weather balloon sponsored by Arizona Near Space Research (ANSR). These balloons reach a maximum altitude of 100,000 ft and allow schools to fly any desired sensors. Conventionally, the data are acquired and only stored locally on the device or memory cards. However, weather balloons such as the ones launched by ANSR are not tethered and risk total data loss if they are not recovered.
This semester, ASCEND! created a payload that aims to increase the reliability of data collection by transmitting sensor data to a ground station with a tracking, high gain antenna. A GPS unit was placed on the payload that transmits coordinates and altitude over the 915 MHz band using LoRa protocol. The ground station uses these coordinates to compute the range azimuth, and elevation along which to direct the antenna. The results demonstrate that the transmission of data is possible, and can result in data which are useful to the scientific community.
The sensor data being received this semester will be utilized in an onboard stabilization system with a reaction wheel. The goal is to allow for the reaction wheel to stabilize the payload for a camera recording the ascent of the balloon for comparison between the stabilization systems of previous semesters.
ASCEND!
ASCEND! (Aerospace STEM Challenges to Educate New Discoverers) is an Arizona Space Grant Consortium statewide workforce development program organized under NASA’s Space Grant consortium. The ASCEND! program challenges undergraduate students from across the state to design, build, test, and launch small payloads aboard a high-altitude weather balloon sponsored by Arizona Near Space Research (ANSR). These balloons reach a maximum altitude of 100,000 ft and allow schools to fly any desired sensors. Conventionally, the data are acquired and only stored locally on the device or memory cards. However, weather balloons such as the ones launched by ANSR are not tethered and risk total data loss if they are not recovered.
This semester, ASCEND! created a payload that aims to increase the reliability of data collection by transmitting sensor data to a ground station with a tracking, high gain antenna. A GPS unit was placed on the payload that transmits coordinates and altitude over the 915 MHz band using LoRa protocol. The ground station uses these coordinates to compute the range azimuth, and elevation along which to direct the antenna. The results demonstrate that the transmission of data is possible, and can result in data which are useful to the scientific community.
The sensor data being received this semester will be utilized in an onboard stabilization system with a reaction wheel. The goal is to allow for the reaction wheel to stabilize the payload for a camera recording the ascent of the balloon for comparison between the stabilization systems of previous semesters.