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By Jamie Karras
When it comes to money, $100,000 may seem like a lot. But to Utah State University students building a satellite, it seems like pocket change. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has provided 13 universities from all over the United States with that amount to design and fabricate a satellite. The schools will be completing against each other to see which will get to send its satellite on a free ride to space, said Joel Quincieu, a master's student at Utah State University and program manager supervising 30 other engineering students working on the satellite, dubbed USU Sat II. In the grand scheme of things, however, this amount is minimal compared with what a project like this really costs. "It's like someone giving you $20 to buy a BMW," said Quincieu. "You probably wouldn't even make it to the store." Quincieu said that if a professional group were to build the same thing, it would probably cost between $2 million and $3 million. This means that the team members will be building a majority of the hardware themselves to help reduce costs and relying on grants for the rest. Two years ago USU participated in a similar project called USU Sat I. This spacecraft was one of three being designed for the Ionospheric Observation Nanosatellite Formation. The University of Washington and Virginia Polytechnic Institute built the two other spacecrafts. These individual crafts would be stacked and launched together. Upon arrival in ionosphere they would separate. Before completion however, money for this project ran out and the project was forced into a sleep mode until more funding is available, said Quincieu. USU Sat II will be using some electronics and software from USU Sat I, said Quincieu. Forty years ago there was a lot of money being dumped into the space program; now, however, budgets have become tighter. There is a need for new employees, but training them is expensive. AFOSR, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Air Force Research Laboratory – Space Vehicles Directorate implemented this program as a way to provide future work force training to students, said Dr. Charles Swenson, principal investigator and mentor of the USU Sat II team. Since Space Flight 1010 isn't a class offering, this program is a way to prepare students for employment in various space fields, said Swenson. Building a satellite that does something other than just beep is the main goal. "Being able to work on a real mission is rare," said Quincieu. It is very difficult and expensive to get specific training, so this is a huge opportunity for the students involved. In February, the team began its attempt to hit a two-year deadline to design, built and test a nanosatellite. A nanosatellite is a tiny satellite, about the size of a 19-inch color television, said Quincieu. The satellite will study and measure the ionosphere, a region of the Earth's atmosphere that plays an important role in protecting the planet from the sun's harmful radiation, said Quincieu. The team includes graduate and undergraduate students working on a volunteer basis from many nations, including Switzerland and India, who are studying in both electrical and mechanical engineering, reported the Herald Journal. The electrical students work with the computers, battery power, and basically the brains of the satellite; while the mechanical students are involved with the structure and engineering portion. "The electricians must consult with the mechanics or we might have a problem," Quincieu told USU Media Relations. "It's a lot like marriage. We have to go to each other with every little design change we implement. We can't go off and do our own thing." A launch goal date Quincieu says would be sometime in 2006.
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