Iowa Space Grant Consortium

Announcements

UNI Students and NASA Scientist Study Wind Cave National Park

Fifteen students and two faculty members from the University of Northern Iowa, along with Dr. Morgan Cable, a NASA astrobiologist, had the opportunity to travel inside Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota for their spring break for a simulated astrobiological field research expedition as part of a hands-on field chemistry course.

UNI students researching the depths of Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota

This field trip, partially funded by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, was meant for the undergraduate students to learn what an astrobiologist may endure while field sampling in potentially extreme environments.

The students operated many instruments including Geiger Counters, an X-Ray Fluorescence and smart phone microscopes to study the structures inside the cave. Along with learning how to use these instruments under field conditions, the students’ research results will provide the park staff with new information about the cave.

Dr. Cable provided advanced support for the students from her extensive knowledge in comparing extreme environments on Earth to other areas in the solar system where life may be found. Extreme environments like the Wind Cave, help scientists better understand the limits of life and its relations to space.

The class will be sharing their experience and initial results with the public at the 131 Iowa Academy of Science Meeting on April 26, at the University of Northern Iowa.

 

National Quadcopter Workshop at University of Hartford is Accepting Applications

NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium is accepting applications for the National Quadcopter Workshop, which will take place at the University of Hartford June 3-7.

The workshop is aimed at teaching educators the steps and logistics necessary to run a “Quadcopter Challenge”. Participants will build their own quadcopter (included in cost of workshop), learn to fly it, and refine coding, soldering, CAD design and 3D printing skills.

Cost of the workshop is $1,300 and admissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Iowa educators and faculty at ISGC sponsored schools are encouraged to apply.

 

Application for 2019 National Quadcopter Workshop

Quadcopter Workshop Flyer

eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab) 2020 Academic Innovation Challenge

https://spacegrant.org/xhab/
Proposals Due: April 26, 2019

Description
The National Space Grant Foundation is currently accepting proposals for the X-Hab Academic Innovation Challenge. X-Hab is a university-level challenge designed to develop strategic partnerships and collaborations with universities. It has been organized to help bridge strategic knowledge gaps and increase knowledge in capabilities and technology risk reduction related to NASA’s vision and missions. In 2016, the X-Hab Challenge scope was formally extended to include other areas of Exploration Systems as well as habitation topics. The competition is intended to link with senior- and graduate-level design curricula that emphasize hands-on design, research, development, and manufacturing of functional prototypical subsystems that enable functionality for space habitats and deep-space exploration missions. NASA will directly benefit from the challenge by sponsoring the development of innovative concepts and technologies from universities, which will result in novel ideas and solutions that could be applied to exploration.

The Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division will offer multiple awards of $15k – $50k each to design and produce studies or functional products of interest to the AES Division (see Section 3.2, X-Hab Proposal Topic List) as proposed by university teams according to their interests and expertise. The prototypes produced by the university teams (examples of which are shown in Figure 1) may be integrated into existing NASA-built operational prototypes. Universities interested in participating will submit X-Hab proposals, which will be reviewed by technical experts; subsequent down-selection will determine which projects will be funded. X-Hab university teams will be required to complete their products for evaluation by the AES Division in May 2020. Universities may form collaborations to perform as a single distributed project team.

Students in the Critical Path
The X-Hab Academic Innovation Challenge has a unique approach to student involvement, in that the student team is placed in the NASA mission critical path for the product or technology that they develop alongside NASA researchers. Teams are required to go through a series of NASA-standard assessments as other NASA engineering products, including a System Definition Review (SDR), a Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and a Critical Design Review (CDR). With this approach, NASA is putting a great deal of responsibility on the students. This in turn gives the students a bigger stake in the development of space technologies that likely will form the basis for future systems and technologies that will be flown in space.

Eligibility
Proposals will be accepted from faculty who are U.S. citizens and currently teach an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET)-accredited engineering senior or graduate design, industrial design, or architecture curriculum teaming course at a university affiliated with the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, or other US accredited university. Multidisciplinary, multi-departmental, and/or multi-institutional teaming collaborations are highly encouraged.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges, and other minority-serving educational institutions are particularly encouraged to apply. Proposals from women, members of underrepresented minorities groups, and persons with disabilities are highly encouraged.

Undergrad Brandon Vance will display research to Congress in Washington, D.C.

CBE major and Iowa Space Grant Consortium fellow researches creation of fuel for Mars missions

Like many other middle school students, Brandon Vance went on a class trip to Washington, D.C. Now, as an undergraduate university researcher, he will be headed back to the nation’s capital with a spot in the prestigious Posters on The Hill event with his name on it.

Vance with lab materials
Materials used with the reactor are at the ready in the Tessonnier Group lab where Vance conducts his research.

Each spring the Council on Undergraduate Research (a nationwide membership group that assists collegiate administrators, researchers, staff and students in support of undergraduate research) hosts this special poster session that allows undergraduate college students from around the nation to show off their research projects to members of Congress and their staffers. Many apply. Few are selected. Vance is among 60 students who will display, from more than 350 who filed the paperwork for this year’s event, which will take place April 28-30.

Vance is a senior in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE). His research project, “Designing Catalysts for the Direct Production of Methane Fuel on Mars,” is supported by a fellowship through the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, a NASA funded agency affiliated with the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State. His mentor is CBE associate professor Jean-Philippe Tessonnier and he’s an undergraduate member of Tessonnier’s research group. Vance is also a McNair Scholar at Iowa State, studying with assistance from the program that aids first generation, underrepresented, minority and low-income students in preparing for graduate school an attainment of a Ph.D.

Vance with reactor
Vance displays the reactor that is the centerpiece of the catalysis process that can be used on the surface of Mars to create rocket fuel.

Vance joined Tessonnier’s group in the fall of 2017 and began working on this project in the summer of 2018 with the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC) Research Experience for Undergraduates here at Iowa State. “I then applied for the Iowa Space Grant Consortium fellowship so I could keep working on the project,” Vance said.

NASA Journey to Mars graphic
NASA is planning manned missions to Mars, and Brandon Vance’s research will help fuel rockets that will get people back to Earth.

NASA plans to one day send manned missions to Mars. Getting crews and equipment to and from what will be the furthest destination that has ever been reached is no easy task. All sorts of challenges must be addressed. Vance’s research looks at the problem of how to fuel space craft for the return to Earth from Mars. “You can get a rocket to Mars, but it’s impossible to send enough fuel with them to get them back, Vance explained. “So it’s necessary to create the fuel to get back right there on the surface of Mars.”

Vance’s project examines how to turn carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas into methane for that fuel. It’s known as carbon dioxide methanation, and is done through a catalyzed process (one which enables a chemical reaction to proceed at a faster rate or under different conditions than would normally be possible). It’s a procedure used in industry to create synthetic, or substitute, natural gas. But the catalysts currently used can’t stand the high operating temperatures that wouldoccur with this particular process that would take place on Mars. Vance’s project addresses coming up with a catalyst to overcome this, using a computational model he designed himself, along with dong the vast majority of the experimental work.

Vance with research pposter
Vance is shown with the research poster he will display to members of Congress in Washington, D.C. in April.

The process involves using a reactor. But whereas most people picture a reactor as being a huge piece of equipment, the reactor Vance uses in this project is less than a foot in length. It was built by a former chemical engineering graduate student, Elspeth Petersen, who was part of Tessonnier’s research group and also focused on developing catalysis to produce methane for rocket fuel, in research that was also supported by the Iowa Space Grant Consortium.

The biggest obstacle to overcome was the computational model. He reported it took more than three months to develop a model that gave physically meaningful results and provided true insight into the catalytic system being studied. He has worked to develop models that demonstrate the effects of the detrimental heat transfer with the performance of the catalyst.

The Washington, D.C. event will top a list of opportunities that Vance has had to show his research in recent months, including an oral presentation at the McNair Heartland Research Conference in Kansas City, the 2018 Annual American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Student Conference in Pittsburgh, and the recent 2019 Iowa Space Grant Consortium Student Research Symposium at Drake University. He will also present his poster at the annual Research in the Capitol event April 1 at the Iowa Capitol.

Vance and Bohoroquez
Vance explains his research to Maria Bohorquez at an Iowa Space Grant Consortium symposium at Drake University. She is the campus coordinator for the event, which provides a practice for students displaying their research posters.

Vance plans to attend graduate school and plans to conduct research in biorenewables. He said he is honored to be in the spotlight with this research, but is quick to credit many mentors who have helped him achieve it – chief among them Tessonnier. “A very important part of my research is JP’s role in all this,” said Vance. “He’s letting me soak up the limelight, but he’s played a big part. Also my graduate student mentors Radhika Rao (now a postdoctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and Elspeth Petersen (who is now a scientist working at the NASA Kennedy Space Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida), who designed the reactor for the project and went a long way in helping me understand the lab work and the world of research. People say I am doing great things, but it is all a function of the mentorship other people have given me.”

Said Tessonnier: “Brandon is an outstanding student who quickly became a real asset to our group and our NASA-sponsored project. He demonstrated how the thermal conductivity of the catalyst support impacts the selectivity of the CO2 methanation reaction, which is relevant to the production of fuel for manned Mars missions. I am glad that Brandon was selected for the Poster on the Hill conference. He will proudly represent our department and Iowa State.”

NASA App Development Challenge: Work with coding and app in support of space launch

Middle school and high school students interested in coding and app development have the opportunity to practice their skills via the exciting platform of a NASA mission.

In the “NASA App Development Challenge: Acsent Abort 2,” students work in teams to develop an app that visualizes three minutes of test data in support of the upcoming Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2) launch scheduled for June 2019. The challenge begins with a live virtual kickoff event and presentation March 13.

Get more information in a document here or with the App Development Challenge web site here.

Still want to apply for Spaceflight Operations Workshop? Deadline’s been extended!

The deadline to apply for the 2019 Spaceflight Operations Workshop™ (SOW) in the Iowa State University Department of Aerospace Engineering has been extended to 11:59 p.m, Sunday, February 24.

Any collegiate student who would still like to be considered for this impactful experience in operational thinking and teamwork can apply here.

The workshop is coordinated by ISU Aerospace Engineering alumni and senior lecturers Clayton Anderson and Tomas

Students scuba diving
Scuba training and certification is included in the workshop events.

Gonzalez-Torres. Anderson is a retired NASA astronaut who participated in two space flights with the International Space Station and Gonzalez-Torres is a former NASA flight director who was in charge of spacewalks. He worked with space shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope missions.

The workshop immerses participants in a series of experiences and classroom activities that are a microcosm of the training NASA astronauts undergo to develop their ability to “think operationally,” a key skill, applicable to many professions, and critically necessary for space exploration.

“Spaceflight Operations is a concept – it’s a thought process,” says Anderson. “When you live and work as an astronaut, you think in an operational sense. The idea with this workshop is to change the students’ way of thinking – to open their eyes to a way to think more operationally.”

In a span of about two weeks scuba diving training (including certification), skydiving, aircraft flight simulation, wilderness preparedness training and more are on the agenda. “We put them in some extreme environments, which is exactly what space travel is all about,” says Anderson.

Student skydiving
A workshop participant and his instructor prepare for touchdown in the workshop’s skydiving activity.

There’s also a healthy dose of classroom activities. Past workshops have covered topics such as operational procedure development (with Aerospace Engineering faculty member and former NASA flight director Tomas Gonzalez-Torres), leadership and teamwork, pilot performance, decision analysis, payload and science operations, astronaut training concepts, and more.

This year’s SOW will be held August 7-18, with home base at Iowa State University. Learn more about SOW here.

Clayton Anderson
Clayton Anderson
Tomas Gonzalez-Torres