UNH Offers Spacey Experience

Scientists from the University of New Hampshire’s Space Science Center in Durham will use a $4.6 million grant from NASA to create a project that will offer a diverse group of college students nationwide hands-on research experience designing and building small satellites to be launched into outer space. The satellites will collect data for one of NASA’s space missions.

The Student Collaboration Project, led by Noé Lugaz, a research associate professor of physics, will collaborate with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission and build off of the collected data to provide a firsthand research experience for undergraduate and graduate students. The idea is to help diversify those who pursue space science.

Project coordinators will recruit the first group of students from three universities—UNH, Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Sonoma State University in California. During the five-year project, students from each university will design and build a CubeSat—a small satellite the size of a half-gallon of milk. The CubeSat will have an instrument that can quantify the concentration of oxygen in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and provide scientists with clues about the effects of solar wind. This is the region where many satellites are located and knowing more about the atmosphere’s density could help determine their orbit and lifetime.

“The students from each university have a variety of strengths and experiences that will allow them all to learn from one another,” says Lugaz. “They’re not just doing this on their own, they’ll be collaborating and interacting with each other via online learning tools and technology so they can talk to one another and learn together.”

The student-built CubeSats will launch in 2024 separately from the main IMAP mission but at the same time in order to collect complementary data. The CubeSats will be in space for about four months and will be located much closer to the Earth than other IMAP instruments.

UNH was chosen as the lead because of its space physics program and its history of students developing payloads for numerous rocket science missions. Other UNH SSC scientists involved include Marc Lessard, professor of physics, and Jason Legere, a research engineer, who will provide mentoring, and Sonya Smith, a UNH project manager, will provide support.