Meeting information and group contacts are on the Contact page.
Overview
The Student Space Programs Laboratory (SSPL) at the Pennsylvania State University allows undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to design, fabricate, and integrate space systems. The SSPL provides hands-on projects to apply classroom knowledge to real world, interdisciplinary settings. SSPL students experience working through a complete design cycle and must develop a systems engineering mind-set in addition to their component-level experience.
Get Involved!
There are many opportunities for new students to get involved. The lab is searching for students from first-year through graduate students. Previous experience is not required; we have small projects and training programs that will bring you up to speed faster than you may think.Contact Us
News and Announcements
Ongoing - CanSat First Year Seminar Registration Open for Fall 2008
Incoming students can register for the CanSat first year seminar. It is listed as "E E 009S, This is Rocket Science on Penn State's Schedule of Courses
Ongoing - Space Systems Engineering Seminar Open for Fall 2008
Students interested in pursuing the Space Systems Engineering Certificate can register for the Space Systems Engineering Seminar. It is listed as "E E 497E" on Penn State's Schedule of Courses
10 July 2008 - Collegian article: "Senior gets internship at NASA"
A big congratulations to Jessica Tramaglini on her acceptance into the NASA Academy, a highly competitive internship which "gives students the critical exposure needed to work within the aerospace industry." [link]
15 May 2008 - NittanySat students present at 12th International Effects Symposium in Alexandria, Va.
Students Perry Edwards, Adam Escobar, and Andrea Wyant attended the 12th international Ionospheric Effects Symposium (IES) to present NittanySat’s mission to characterize and better understand the D-region ionosphere's effects on radiowave propagation. According to IES, the purpose of the conference is to "bridge the gap between applications and research involving ionospheric & space weather disciplines."
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| Discussion with Prof. Bob Schunk, author of several ionospheric books. | Students with Prof. Bodo Reinisch, Head of Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences Department at University of Massachusetts Lowell and developer of the first digital ionosonde. | Students with Dr. David Anderson, NOAA -- he is well known in ionospheric modeling and calculations of ionospheric response to geomagnetic effects. |
1 May 2008 - Students Display Work at PSU Project Showcase
Every semester, the Penn State Learning Factory (machine shop) showcases projects completed by students in the College of Engineering. This year, Nate Morgan, Ed Brouwers (below left), and Jason Miller presented SSPL's Next Generation [Sounding Rocket] Boom project while Matt Sunderland (below right) presented the NittanySat Sensor Board.
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29 April 2008 - HEMI team discusses gamma ray burst science with NASA expert
Seven students from the team developing the High Energy Monitoring Instrument (HEMI) to detect gamma ray bursts (GRBs) travelled to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Facility to discuss GRB science with Dr. Neil Gehrels, a leading expert in GRB science and instrumentation. While at Goddard, the students were also able to tour the facilities.
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| Students meeting will Dr. Gehrels | Touring one of Goddard's balloon payloads in development - an X-Ray telescope. | Hardware being assembled and tested in the world's second largest clean room for the upcoming Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission | Students in front of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (expected to launch late fall 2008) |
28 April 2008 - ESPRIT Students Present Sounding Rocket Success to Aerospace Corp.
Five students representing the ESPRIT Sounding Rocket Project (launched 2006) presented the results of the project to senior members of the Aerospace Corporation in Chantilly Virginia.
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| Adam Escobar introducing the ESPRIT project | Adam Escobar, Brian Schratz, Nate Morgan, Perry Edwards, and Kris Greenert during the presentation | Kris Greenert, Nate Morgan, Perry Edwards, Tom (Aerospace Corp), Brian Schratz, Matt Ferringer (SPIRIT I alumni, Aerospace Corp Performance Modeling and Analysys Department), Prof. Tim Wheeler, Adam Escobar, and Prof. Russell Philbrick |
26 April 2008 - Students share space with the public at Exploration Day at Penn State
SSPL students joined with organizations from across Penn State to bring the excitement of space to the general public at Penn State's annual Exploration Day event (previously Space Day and Bio Day). The students showed off the microgravity, balloon, rocket, and satellite missions they're involved with as well as hosting interactive demos to show how basic physicals principals are used in space exploration.
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14 April 2008 - Sounding Rocket Boom Completes first Test at NASA Wallops
SSPL students Nate Morgan, Jason Miller, and John Kreisher of the Next Generation Boom project travelled to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Virginia's Eastern Shore to spin test their new boom deployment system for sounding rocket instruments. The team's goal is to provide an adaptable boom system to serve as off-the-shelf hardware for future rocket missions. The first generation boom flew successfully on the ESPRIT payload which launched from Norway in summer 2006.
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7-12 April 2008 - Students attend CubeSat Developers Workshop at Cal Poly
SSPL students Tony Tao, Chris Gardner, and Brian Schratz spent the week in California to attend the 2008 CubeSat Developers workshop at the California Polytechnic Institute. While in California, the students were also able to tour NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Boeing's Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in Hawthorne.
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| At JPL, left to right: (1) Chris in the TeamX area, JPL's concurrent mission design facility (2) the Surface System Testbed of the Mars Exploration Rover at the In-Situ Instrument Laboratory (3) Chris in front of a 1/4 model of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently in orbit around Mars (4) touring the Space Environment Simulator--a 27-foot diameter, 85 foot tall environmental chamber used to test spacecraft. The chamber uses 37 xenon 20- to 30-kilowatt arc lamps to simulate the sun and can cycle the environment between -320 F to +200 F (5) Chris and Brian in front of one of the "smaller" thermal vac systems |
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| At SpaceX, left to right: (1) Chris and Brian being escorted through the machine shop (2) Tony and Chris in front of the aft end of the Falcon 1 where the engine attaches (3) Tony, Chris, and Brian in front of the Falcon's Merlin rocket engine (4) the group in front of the Falcon 9 rocket currently being built and (5) a peak inside one of the two tanks that make up the Falcon 9 rocket |
10-11 April 2008 - NittanySat Completes Critical Design Review at Penn State with US Air Force
SSPL hosted several representatives from the US Air Force Research Laboratory for the critical design review of NittanySat, the lab's entry in the University Nanosat 5 Program.
29 February 2008 - Next Generation Boom Project Passes CDR, Begins to Manufacture
The advanced technology project, Next Generation Boom, has passed the critical design review and concluded its design phase. The student development team has now begun to manufacture the system, learning practical engineering concepts by physically creating what they design. The Next Generation Boom system extends probes away from a sounding rocket payload to collect scientific data. The system is being developed for future SSPL rocket missions as well as in cooperation with the Andøya Rocket Range.
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| Jason Miller uses a milling machine | Nate Morgan inspects a CNC |
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| Brian Krawiec and Bobby Moore cut longerons on a mill |
29 February 2008 - JANUS Satellite Principal Investigator, Dr. Roming, presents mission to HEMI students
Dr. Pete Roming from Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics presented the proposed Joint Astrophysics and Nascent Universe Satellite (JANUS) mission to the SSPL students developing the High Energy Monitoring Instrument (HEMI). JANUS proposes to investigate high red-shift gamma ray bursts to understand the early evolution of the universe. HEMI is included in the JANUS mission as a Student Collaboration component. If selected, the students' HEMI instrument will add to the JANUS mission.
19 February 2008 - SSPL Interns at NASA Take Break From Rockets to Help Local High School Students
SSPL Sophomores Alex Pini, Alex Malone, and Tyler Boehmer, currently interning with NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, took a break from building sounding rockets to help local students from Arcadia High School on Virginia's Eastern Shore to complete their robot for the international FIRST competition. The trip was organized by NSROC as part of their educational outreach program. NSROC is the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract at Wallops, tasked with providing sounding rocket missions for NASA.
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| Alex Pini placing battery in robot, Tyler Boehmer on right | Tyler Boehmer on left, discussing how to wire the robot with robotics teacher Mr. Dunn and students Monica and James. |
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| Alex Malone on far right, with student James moving the robot outside to be tested |
16 February 2008 - SSPL Greets Prospective Students in College of Engineering Open House
Student representing all of the SSPL projects helped share the excitement of working with space projects with prospective students attending the College of Engineering Open House.
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15 January 2008 - SSPL's HEMI Instrument Selected to Fly on High Altitude Balloon
SSPL’s proposal for HEMI (High Energy Monitor Instrument) was accepted to fly on the High Altitude Student Platform (HASP) in August. HASP is being developed by SSPL students to detect when a gamma ray burst (GRB) occurs and record data on the event. Ultimately, HEMI is intended to be a student instrument for measuring GRBs on a future satellite mission. As the challenges for developing student satellite hardware are significant, a precursor balloon flight will provide the necessary heritage to enable a more costly and complex project.
8 January 2008 - Students Learn Real Rocket Science at NASA
Allen Kummer, Nate Morgan, Dave Ydoate, and Brian Schratz spent the day at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) on Virginia's Eastern Shore along with students Alex Pini and Tyler Boehmer who a interning at WFF this semester. The students were at Wallops to learn how to design and build sounding rockets from the WFF engineers and technicians. The students explored several payloads in assembly and toured facilities like the testing & environmental labs, attitude control system testing, sounding rocket launch rails, and launch platforms for orbital launches.
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| Nate Morgan, Alex Pini, Dave Ydoate, Tyler Boehmer, and Allen Kummer in front of an inert Terrier Orion sounding rocket |
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Allen Kummer inspecting part of a sounding rocket payload |
7 January 2008 - Students Visit Orbital Sciences Corp. and NASA Goddard
17 SSPL students visited NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD hosted by PSU alums Josh Grodin (ESPRIT) and Matthew Ritsko. The students saw several facilities for the fabrication and testing of satellite and balloon payloads included hardware like the propulsion module that will propel the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to and around the moon. Later that day they visited Orbital in Dulles, VA hosted by SPIRIT II alum Peter Cipollo. The students saw several satellites in various stages of production and their fabrication and testing facilities.
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| Students in front of the centrifuge Goddard used to use to test their satellites up to 30 G's |
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| Students in front of part of the Hubble Space Telescope engineering model |