The pressure is building for the microgravity team at Iowa State this year as it works to finish its experiment to launch a satellite into space in August.

The team is one of 50 university teams nationwide selected to participate in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.

“We are very happy that we got selected,” said Jerry Stoner, team member and junior in computer engineering.

The student program is held by NASA every year, and though many teams across the country compete for a spot in the program, few are accepted. Those who are selected get the chance to build and test an experiment on the KC-135A “Weightless Wonder,” a NASA aircraft that simulates zero gravity.

“We were very pleased to see that the hard work that we put into the proposal paid off,” said Tom Cunningham, team member and sophomore in mechanical engineering. “We expect this to be a great learning experience for us.”

Once a team gets into the program, it has the opportunity to build and test space-related experiments on the NASA aircraft.

“The real prize is the opportunity to not only test an experiment in microgravity, but to be able to fly in it as well,” Cunningham said. “Very few people will ever experience microgravity in the extent that the plane can provide.”

Microgravity, or reduced gravity, occurs when the KC-135A plane freefalls for 25 seconds. The plane then flies up to its starting height and does another dive. This happens 30 to 40 times in a flight.

The experiment the team will test on the flight is the Cyclone Satellite’s Control and Attitude Determination Evaluation Testbed II, a direct continuation of last year’s experiment, CyCADET, which was tested on the KC-135A in the spring.

CyCADET II is a model of Cyclone Satellite, the satellite that the team will launch into space. The model, smaller than a soccer ball, will be tested for attitude control — its ability to stop itself from spinning, to adjust its position and orientation, and to collect visual data in reduced gravity.

Tests done on the model will give the team an idea of how well the controls of satellite CySat will work in space.

“Last year’s test wasn’t quite exactly what we were looking for,” said Mike Cook, team adviser and aerospace engineer. “[The team is] going to be using some different control designs that are better that will give them a better response time while they’re on the airplane.”

If all goes well, once CySat is in orbit, the team will be able to control its position and orientation, take pictures of the Earth and successfully download the pictures from the satellite.

The model will be tested on the plane in the last week of June, and the actual satellite will be launched in August from Russia, where a company will attach the satellite to a rocket and launch it into space.

“They use our satellites as dead weight to balance other satellites on a rocket,” Stoner said. “Normally it would cost several hundred thousand dollars to launch a satellite; we can launch ours for approximately $50,000.”

The team hasn’t raised enough money yet, but it expects to have proper funding in time for the launch. If they don’t launch this year, it may never orbit Earth.

“If we wait, chances are the project will kind of flounder,” Stoner said. “We’ve got a lot of dedicated people working on it this semester.”

Currently, the team is funded by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, the departments of aerospace and mechanical engineering and the Spacecraft Systems and Operations Laboratory.