This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The project will enable ten undergraduate students per year to actively participate in scientific and engineering research throughout the year at the University of New Mexico (UNM), in the FPGA Mission Assurance Center (FMAC), which since the submission of the proposal has become the Configurable Space Microsystems and Applications Center (COSMIAC). The students will be exposed to projects across a variety of disciplines that range from engineering satellite systems to analyzing data and conducting scientific research in the space and atmospheric sciences. Activities include hands-on experience working on the design, construction, and continued testing and refining of sets of three broadband tunable VHF (very high frequencies) receivers, one for each of three CubeSats capable of a) measuring both lightning sferics and anthropogenic sources of electromagnetic pulses (EMP), b) geo-locating the sources to high accuracy (less than 1 km), and c) extracting information about the Earth's ionosphere. Under the supervision and instruction of UNM faculty as well as scientists from the broader FMAC (now COSMIAC) consortium, which includes the Air Force Research Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory, all within close proximity, students will be required to design the complete spacecraft as well as define how constellation flight will be controlled, how an unusual power system can be launched and deployed, how sensors can be developed, analyzed and tested for the main mission, and how substantial quantities of data can be transmitted through a weight/power limited link.
The project aims to provide the students comprehensive exposure to nearly all aspects of conducting a space research project coupled to the collaborative experience of working side-by-side with fellow students as well as scientists and engineers, all of which combines together to form a firm foundation on which to launch space related scientific and technical careers. The project will recruit students not only from UNM, which is a minority serving institution, but will also reach out to other near-by schools, including New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and New Mexico State University, all of which have large minority populations. In addition, the project is making a special effort to recruit minorities and underrepresented groups to the program.
