US university student-built satellite launched by Nasa

A small beach ball-sized satellite developed by students at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) has been successfully launched by Nasa to better understand the affects of atmospheric drag on satellite orbits.

Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on 29 September, the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, will examine the variations of a layer of Earth’s atmosphere, known as the thermosphere, at altitudes from nearly 200 to 300 miles above the planet.

DANDE, which has COSGC director Chris Koehler as the primary investigator, measures about 20in in diameter and weighs just more than 100lb.

Developed over a period of nearly six years by around 150 students as part of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium (COSGS), the new satellite is carrying an accelerometer, a wind and temperature spectrometer, as well as an onboard computer and an orientation control system.

It is also carrying radio equipment for real-time transmission of data to Earth.

While the accelerometer can sense the movement, speed and direction of the satellite allowing scientists to better understand drag forces, the wind and temperature spectrometer will deliver data on the varying drag forces.

It will identify the type of particles that are impacting spacecraft, as well as the angles and collision velocities.

The satellite launched onboard a commercial Falcon-9 SpaceX rocket, which also carried satellites from the Canadian Space Agency, Utah State University and Cornell University.

The spacecraft’s team anticipates collecting continuous information from the satellite for nearly 1.5 years, and downloading it several times a day to the COSGC satellite control facility in the CU-Boulder engineering college.

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Image: The DANDE student team from CU-Boulder in California after the successful launch of the satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Photo: courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder.