Explorer-1 Prime is heading for California tomorrow for her world premier.  This is the first official outing for E1P; the so-called "fit check" to insure that we meet the design specifications to fit into the P-POD without interference and that she meets size and weight specs.  NASA personnel and the CubeSat community will see her for the first time on Wednesday.  We anticipate no issues with the fit check -- dimensions seem to be pretty close to dead-on.  Her weight is about 985 grams, well within the 1000 gram limit.   Finishing out will add a few more grams for staking compound and for a few closeout panels that will be added.

E1P radio communications happen on amateur radio frequencies.  Because of the limited range of most* radio communications the amateur bands are regulated (or not, as the case may be) by individual countries.  The national regulating agencies (eg FCC in the US)  make the frequency allocation rules and amateurs share their bands by switching frequencies if a particular wavelength is over subscribed.
This same process must happen at the international level for amateur satellites. However, because satellite communications must be carefully planned well in advance, the cooperation must happen well in advance. Cooperation between hundreds of developers around the world is made complicated by time and space separation as well as the vagaries of development and launch schedules.  By common agreement this mess is sorted by the International Amateur Radio Union for which we are all eternally grateful.
Coordination is not easy, nor should it be. One must prove to the committee by providing details of your satellite plans and operation modes that your satellite has a chance at operational space flight and that it is truly an amateur project.
Friday the E1P team received the final confirmation of coordination for the upcoming NASA ElaNa launch!  This summer tune to 437.505 MHz to hear Explorer -1 [PRIME] exploring the Van Allen radiation belts.

*Some of the most interesting amateur radio happens at wavelengths longer than 8 meters where the ionosphere is reflective. This mirroring effect allows radio waves to travel for thousands of miles, sometimes to the other side of the planet! In reality the lack of global regulation has more to do with the limited range of politicians.

Today we assembled all flight systems in a functional configuration for the first time!  Everything fit nicely together and there were no roadblocks.  The satellite weighs in at ~7/10 of a kilo but is still missing its solar arrays, hysteresis rods and several Geiger counter components. Tomorrow we start testing out the radio in its flight configuration as we move closer towards comprehensive performance testing.

The most startling thing that was the austerity of a nearly wireless spacecraft (below left).  This is in stark contrast to our first CubeSat MEROPE whos wiring only a (robot) mother could love (below right). 

Explorer-1 [Prime] Wire count: 15 +/- 2

MEROPE Wire count: Guess correctly and win our prize!

 

Another nice article about E1P from our friend Evelyn Boswell is up on the MSU web site. She touts our recent recomendation by a NASA review team for an historic joint American student-NASA CubeSat launch and features a picture (right) by ace photographer Kelly Gorham of Pat Lokken putting the finishing touches on our flight radio a couple days ago.

A (sometimes) fun thing about giving an interview is you never quite remember what you said, so seeing your words in print can sometimes be surprising. My favorite quote this time:

At this point, he believes they'll ride in the rear of the rocket next to the motor.

"It will be a rough ride; hot and violent and probably scary if we were riding there ourselves," Jacobs said.

Again, congratulations to the E1P team and their PPOD mates KySat and HERMES.

One of the notable features of space is the absence of air. Space is remarkably free of it.  While its absence is most commonly associated with hurting living creatures, the lack of air in space has several negative affects on our mechanical creations as well.  Last week our radio was subjected these conditions and put through a punishing series of tests designed to make it overheat.  While we were able to cause a peak temperature of just under 60C this is 90C below the maximum.  A major risk has been retired by this test. 
This was also the first trial of all major E1P systems (minus payload) under vacuum as well as the first use of the new chamber.
 In addition to the stress test we learned that with proper cleaning our electronics are not (as was suspected) chock full of condensable volatiles material which gooks up vacuum chambers.  The Residual Gas Analyzer tells that post test residual gas is indistinguishable from pre-test conditions.  Our satellite is tough but clean.

That's right folks, we are down-selected for flight in a PPOD for a historic American CubeSat launch! This will be the first time students working on the hugely popular CubeSat platform at American universities will have access to space on an American rocket.*
NASA has down-selected three CubeSats based on the reviews conducted back in May. We will be riding with Kentucky's KySat and UC-Boulder's HERMES.  The only hurdle left is the final go ahead from the NASA brass to put a PPOD as a secondary payload on one of several up-coming launches. 
Stay tuned to see what rocket we'll be riding.

*Of course the way has been pioneered by previous collaborations between universities and NASA where students had some involvement.  Missions like GeneSat and earlier student missions like Opal and QuakeSat have nicely paved our road to easy student space projects.

Design of a CubeSat is an exercise in electronics compression, of squeezing more chips and wires into less space.  With a combination of innovative ideas and good careful engineering E1P student engineers have shown that a CubeSat can be constructed with only 15 wires.  On the right, Pat Lokken displays the first full assembly of the E1P Vertical Bus system (click to embiggen).  The system plugged together beautifully. Congratulations to Pat, Floyd and all the engineers that made this happen!

In 1958 Explorer-1 was America's first salvo in the space race, one theater of the US-USSR Cold War. What was the significance of the space race? How did Explorer-1 and the later moon landings figure into the larger picture? Why Explorer-1 [Prime]? This short film by a Masters student from our excellent Master Of Fine Arts in Science and Natural History Filmmaking program attempts to answer these questions.

Our opinion? Explorer-1 [Prime] is our first satellite too! Like the US in the fifties, we need to show we can do it!

A little over a week ago we were reviewed by an independent group of top NASA managers and engineers as part of the process of getting a spot on what we hope will be the very first NASA Cubesat launch. We prepared exhaustively, laid out a great presentation and got some very positive feedback from the reviewers.  Needless to say, we are just now recovering.

Despite the fact that Cubesats have become a popular educational activity and considered to be a serious endeavor only a few have made it to space.  This is in large part due to the fact that even though a good fraction of them are being built in the US, no Cubesat has ever been launched from the United States.

This could all change within the next 6 months as NASA's top officials consider approving the addition of a PPOD to one of its next missions.  Like Explorer-1 [Prime] this is an historic opportunity for the US to advance the cause of educational launch opportunities. To do so on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the formation of NASA makes even more sense.  We couldn't be more excited!