HR: 09:30h
AN: ED11F-07    [Abstracts]
TI: One University's Approach to Student-Based Experiential Training With Spaceflight Hardware
AU: * Klumpar, D M
EM: klump@physics.montana.edu
AF: Montana State University, Space Science and Engineering Laboratory, Physics Dept., EPS 264 P.O. Box 173840, Bozeman, MT 59717 United States
AB: Montana State University's interdisciplinary Space Science and Engineering Laboratory (SSEL) is in the fifth year of a program that is providing trained space experimentalists and space-savvy engineers for the nation's workforce. Through this program students learn, through first hand experience, the need for rigorous trade studies, documentation, design reviews, and procedures by which interdisciplinary teams conduct successful scientific satellite missions. The program differs from more traditional university student involvements in satellite instrumentation in that, rather than somewhat compartmentalized participation in a formal NASA space mission (or sounding rocket investigation) these students conceive, design, build, test, and fly their own missions. As a result of these projects being entirely student managed and student executed, the students experience all aspects of the complete mission development cycle, including full responsibility for project management. Contributing to the success of the MSU program has been the fact that the projects are ongoing and are carried on outside of the academic course based curriculum structure. Rather than merely taking a course of two and then moving on, individual students spend much of their university tenure associated with the laboratory as an extracurricular activity. The program is based on continuing professional development of the individual student by providing increasingly challenging tasks through increasingly sophisticated projects. The tiered program offers ground-based instruments, balloon-borne systems and payloads, rockets and rocket-based instruments, and earth orbiting satellites and their subsystems. Frequent opportunities to develop and test hardware throughout the long process of satellite design and development are provided by low-cost and frequent high-altitude balloon flights. Strategies that have been developed for dealing with student turnover, and the multitude of priorities that distract the students will be discussed.
UR: http://www.ssel.montana.edu
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
DE: 2494 Instruments and techniques
DE: 2794 Instruments and techniques
DE: 6630 Workforce
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005