Design of High Altitude Balloon Experiment

Students required:              variable

Student requirements:        Experience with hardware.

Project description:             The WSU High Altitude Balloon Team (HAB) has already successfully launched 4 HABs to near space. Photos from up to 97,000 ft are shown at http://www.engineering.wright.edu/cecs/highaltitudeballoonteam/ . ILCDover (the company that makes NASA’s space suits and inflatable spacecraft) has donated a shape memory polymer tube for use by the team. The tube is intended as a demonstrator of structural technology for extremely large spacecraft. Last year’s team designed the deployment system for this tube and is awaiting a good launch date.

In order to be able to launch heavier payloads, additional systems must be designed into the balloon system. Much of the groundwork for this has already been performed by previous teams working with the HAB. 

                                             The design group will interact with former team members, students from EE, and potentially AFIT, Cedarville, MDA corporation, and the Air Force Research Lab sensors directorate and space vehicles. A prioritized list of tasks is given in a companion Excel spreadsheet. The number of tasks to be performed on this project depends on the number of students involved with the project.

Faculty supervisor:       Profs. Joseph Slater (joseph.slater@wright.edu), Mitchell Wolff (mitch.wolff@wright.edu), Ruby Mawasha, and John Wu