ISU engineering students will go to Houston in March to test the prototype of a satellite aboard a NASA aircraft.

The team is participating in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. They will be testing CyCADET (Control and Attitude Determination Evaluation Testbed), a satellite prototype which was created to test the controls of CySat.

CySat is a satellite which will be constructed at Iowa State during the next two years.

David Shoemaker, senior in mechanical engineering and CyCADET project leader, said there are two main objectives of the CySat project. The first is to be able to send a satellite to space, make it stable and communicate back to their lab. CySat will also take photographs of Earth.

Shoemaker said Iowa State is getting involved because it presents an “unparalleled opportunity” for the students. He said the ISU team is one of the few teams consisting of all undergraduate students working on such a satellite.

As one of the 69 university groups selected, the team will spend more than a week in Houston, Texas. While there, the team will undergo training and lectures leading up to the launch of the KC-135A aircraft, also known as the “Weightless Wonder.”

Shoemaker said while the team’s spirits are high, they realize there is a great deal of work left to be done.

Also on the team are Michael Sparks, senior in aerospace engineering, Andrew Tekippe, senior in aerospace engineering, and Tyler Rasmussen, sophomore in mechanical engineering.

Thomas Calgaard, senior in aerospace engineering, will serve as an alternate for the team.

The project began in late August 2003 when the proposal for the program was first written, Shoemaker said. The construction of CyCADET began in December 2003.

He said the group is on a pretty tight timeline before the beginning of the program.

“We still have much of the physical construction and testing left to do,” said Shoemaker.

CyCADET is being tested on the aircraft to find out how its controls react to a microgravity environment.

Shoemaker said CySat’s controls, which are being tested on CyCADET, will behave differently in space and therefore must be tested in such an environment to ensure they will work correctly.

Tekippe said even though the group is experiencing difficulties while constructing CyCADET, he is confident everything will turn out well in the end.

“We are hitting some minor bumps in the road, but the team is working very hard,” he said.

Tekippe said he was very impressed with the work ethic of the team as a whole.

“I am amazed with the professionalism of my peers. This is the type of work to be expected from experienced professionals,” he said.

The team’s training at NASA March 18 to 27 will consist of lectures addressing the physiological effects of space travel and instruction within a hyperbaric chamber, which simulates high altitudes to see how people react to them.

The project will then be reviewed by NASA engineers to ensure it is safe enough to make the trip on the aircraft.

During the flight, the aircraft will achieve a freefall for approximately 25 seconds at a time, with the process being repeated multiple times. Such a freefall creates the weightless environment desired for testing.

The cost of the project is estimated to be about $1,500. Currently sponsoring the project are ISU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Iowa Space Grant Consortium.