Space race

Michigan Tech students to compete for a chance to launch satellite

By LAYLA ASLANI, DMG Writer

HOUGHTON - If you ask a member of Michigan Technological University's Aerospace Enterprise what type of organization their group is considered, you will get a range of answers that include a pseudo-business, project group and a hybrid class/student organization. If you ask them whether their satellite is going to win in an upcoming competition, you get one fairly confident answer.

"We have a good chance," Aerospace Enterprise President, electrical engineering undergraduate and Chassell native Jason Julien said. "We have one of the most complex satellites in the competition."

This semester, 75 students from the Aerospace Enterprise and a wide variety of majors advised by Associate Professor Brad King have been busy finishing the microwave-sized nanosatellite, Oculus. Select team members will accompany the satellite to Albuquerque for the competition sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratories slated for Jan. 19 and 20. They will vie with 10 other schools for the chance to send their satellite to space and receive $110,000 to prepare it for the trip up.

"They're going to bolt this onto a larger satellite that will be going up," Julien said. "It's basically hitching a ride."

Once in space, the Oculus will be released and able to track space junk, known U.S. satellites and meteoroids using a narrow field camera and a wide field camera, Julien said. The students will be able to control Oculus from the ground.

But first, the group must win. At the competition, experts will scrutinize the satellite's details and documents.

"It's two days where we get grilled," Julien said.

Team member Aaron Wendzel said the accompanying 1,000-page documentation will be submitted in advance and describe everything done over the project's two years.

"Basically with that document you could replicate the entire satellite," he said.

The team said they were thankful to all the companies that have donated time and resources.

"We've had over $500,000 in donated equipment and software," Julien said.

The group is constantly training in new members to keep the projects going after students graduate, Julien said. Members have already applied to build a new satellite for the next competition in 2011, he said.

Layla Aslani can be reached at laslani@mininggazette.com.