ASTE Students Participate in International Student Satellite Project in Japan

A new National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored “International Student Satellite Project” under ASTE Prof. Joseph Wang took off during the summer of 2009. This project will send 18 USC students to Japan to participate in the design, building, and operation of micro-satellites over the next three years.

Two USC ASTE students, John Polansky and Samuel Barbour, spent the three summer months of 2009 at Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan to work on the HORYU project (led by Prof. Cho of KIT). HORYU is a 10x10x10cm cube-shaped micro-satellite that is being designed and built entirely by students. HORYU is scheduled for launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in March 2010 as an auxiliary payload on a PSLV-C9. The HORYU project objectives include space material exposure tests, flight test of a CMOS camera module for micro-satellites, and taking high resolution images of the Earth.

In addition to carrying out individual research tasks, both Polansky and Barbour had specific roles related to the project and assisted with the completion of key design tasks in anticipation of the early 2010 launch during their stay at KIT. Barbour joined the attitude determination team and was tasked with the challenge of designing an attitude determination system that will, in flight, distinguish when the satellite is appropriately oriented to take photographs. Polansky joined the communications team and created a LabVIEW program for HORYU’s communication with the ground station. These contributions have been integrated into the HORYU project, as the satellite is being built, and further testing continues. For both students, the experience gained has been invaluable, both in terms of working on an actual satellite as well as being students in foreign country.