1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 Man, those kids looked like they were having a lot of fun. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,000 And learning a lot, too. 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,000 Well, just like NASA Connect teamed up with a school to learn about electromagnetism, 4 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000 NASA's teamed up with a university to help us understand propulsion in space. 5 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:17,000 Hey, let's head to the University of Michigan and see what they've been working on. 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000 I'm Professor Brian Gilchrist with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. 7 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:26,000 And I'm Jane O'Weiler, a graduate student in space systems engineering here at the university. 8 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:31,000 My students were asked to design, build, and test a very small spacecraft 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,000 that will be used with NASA's ProSense tethered mission. 10 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:40,000 ProSense is demonstrating a new kind of propulsion technology that does not require any rocket engines. 11 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:45,000 It uses the Earth's magnetic field to help push and pull on spacecraft. 12 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:49,000 ProSense will pull down a large, used-up rocket stage. 13 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,000 We named the satellite Icarus after the character from Greek mythology. 14 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:59,000 As you might know, Icarus and his father Daedalus were trying to escape from Crete using wings that they'd built. 15 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:05,000 Icarus flew too close to the sun, and the wax that was holding his wings on melted and he fell into the Aegean Sea. 16 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:11,000 The ProSense mission will be successful if it can rapidly bring down the rocket engine from orbit, 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,000 which will ultimately burn up in the atmosphere, falling from the sky, just like Icarus. 18 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:22,000 The Icarus satellite will pull out 15 kilometers of tether from the deployer, 19 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:29,000 and the instruments on board will measure the location of the end of the tether, the end mass, and spacecraft attitude. 20 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:31,000 Did she say attitude? 21 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,000 Not that kind of attitude. I mean the position of the spacecraft relative to the Earth. 22 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:42,000 Right, Jane. The students designed this satellite to collect this information and transmit the data to the ground. 23 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:47,000 Mission scientists will use this information to better understand the dynamics of tether systems. 24 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,000 To build our satellite, we used computer design tools and a lot of discussions and mentoring, 25 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:56,000 from experienced engineers and faculty at Michigan, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, 26 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,000 and from industry partners such as TRW. 27 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:05,000 After the design work, various mechanical and electrical components were purchased or built. 28 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:10,000 These pieces were carefully put together, and then we were able to begin a long list of tests 29 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:13,000 to see if it was going to work the way we wanted it to. 30 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:18,000 At the same time we were designing the hardware, we were developing the computer software. 31 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:22,000 Not everything worked the first time, as is typical of anything new being developed. 32 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 So we had to consider what could have gone wrong, read through the notes and journals 33 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:30,000 to check that we did everything right, and then try again. 34 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:34,000 And sure enough, some changes had to be made to get it ready for delivery and flight. 35 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:40,000 Each step required careful planning to accomplish the special steps that we mentioned earlier. 36 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:45,000 The tests were done here in our labs at Michigan and at the Marshall Space Flight Center. 37 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,000 How did you gather the data? 38 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:52,000 Electronic sensors were often used in our tests to make the critical measurements necessary 39 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,000 to know that the Icarus satellite was still working correctly. 40 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:59,000 But other data collection involved just looking at the satellite to see that, for example, 41 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000 our solar cells were not broken. 42 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:05,000 And sometimes we had to measure how much power the solar panels could generate, 43 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:09,000 or how much power our radio transmitter was sending to its antenna. 44 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:12,000 Wait a minute. They're in Michigan and... 45 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,000 And we're at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 46 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:16,000 How did they do that? 47 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,000 Good communications in a project like this is very important. 48 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000 When the students were designing and building their spacecraft, 49 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,000 they communicated with their NASA partners using presentations, written reports, 50 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:29,000 and through e-mail using the Internet. 51 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,000 Later, as we were collecting data, we dealt with the test reports that showed 52 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,000 how the satellite and its instruments performed. 53 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:41,000 By using patterns, functions and algebra, they were able to prove to themselves and NASA 54 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,000 that the Icarus satellite was ready for flight. 55 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:49,000 Being able to understand data in the form of charts and graphs is a lot easier than descriptions. 56 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:52,000 Mathematics is really like another language, 57 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000 a language that all of our partners need to understand to be able to work together.