A solar eclipse loomed, a Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering sub-orbital spacecraft project two semesters in the making launched and nothing was sure except …. nothing.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Will Brenneke said, “but we loved the opportunity.”
Brenneke was one of six Intelligent System Engineering seniors tasked with launching a satellite to video and measure April’s total eclipse, one of the solar system’s most spectacular events. The other students were Annabel Brinker, Joseph Patus, Gourav Pullela, Lucas Snyder and Caleb Vrydaghs.
“The eclipse offered a unique opportunity to fly this sub-orbital spacecraft during an amazing event,” said Daniel Loveless, associate professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering, “and do real science to get meaningful data that contributes to our understanding.”
It was all that, and more.
A postcard-perfect sun-splashed April afternoon delivered a spectacular total eclipse -- the last time it was visible in Bloomington, Indiana, was 1869 ; the next time will be 2044 -- and Luddy students were on it. They had calculated, planned and dared. They had used new systems, untested systems, systems that were not designed for extreme conditions on the fringe of outer space.
No matter. This was their shot.
“We wanted to make the most of it,” Brenneke said.
Their sub-orbital spacecraft -- a small satellite attached to a white balloon filled with helium -- would supply photos and telemetry while soaring to 112,000 feet. Temperatures would reach 50 degrees below zero Celsius. Winds would surpass 100 mph.
The result -- they failed, succeeded and learned.
“The challenge of a balloon mission or a spacecraft mission is once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Loveless said. “You are out of the loop, at that point. You have no control. You have no adaptability unless you’ve planned for the adaptability.”
Adaptability is crucial in a high-tech world. That ties into the Luddy School’s new Center for Reliable and Trusted Electronics, called IU Create, which is designed to teach students how to create microelectronics capable of withstanding extreme environments.
“It’s another layer of the things we do,” Loveless said. “That’s why it’s a critical workforce development initiative within IU Create. If the students can experience this process, even if it fails, it’s a good thing. It turns into plans that allows the systems to be more adaptable. That also embodies an element of Intelligent Systems Engineering. That’s very important.”
The ultimate goal is to develop reliable systems for spacecrafts and autonomous vehicles that function and adapt in extreme environments.
“It’s all the same,” Loveless said. “It needs to be resilient in these situations. (The eclipse project) is a perfect example of it.”
What did perfect look like in all its imperfections?
*****
Sometimes in science, cutting-edge science, difference-making science, the kind of science Loveless and Luddy students do, failure is an option, the only option, the best option.
Sometimes you fail in order to learn, to grow, to boost your understanding and that of those who are with you and those who will come after.
It’s how science advances and breakthroughs come. It’s how Luddy professors teach students to be the difference-makers of the future.
“Failure can be a positive,” Loveless says. “It’s absolutely a positive. For a student to progress through a curriculum, there’s a connotation we have failure, a letter grade F that means you cannot progress. The reality is, in engineering in particular, everybody has to find the point at which they fail. That’s where they learn and adapt.
“So, we have to get there. We have to fail.”
The Wright Brothers failed, and ultimately succeeded in designing the first airplane. Apollo 13 was one of NASA’s greatest failures (a short-circuit caused a fire and then an explosion in a service module oxygen tank during its 1970 mission to the moon) and, in so many ways that matter most, one of its greatest triumphs (the three astronauts and dozens of scientists and NASA personnel devised a way to safely get them back to Earth).
“In Apollo 13, it was a domino effect,” Loveless says. “Something unexpected happened and it causes a cascade of other things to happen. If that was an autonomous craft, it would have failed. In that case, they had a lab and a lot of smart people. That’s the most extreme of example that we’ve seen.”
Loveless has seen plenty of examples over the years. This time, as part of a capstone project and Luddy’s workforce development initiative, students saw for themselves.
What did they see?
*****
During the project, team members were assigned specific tasks in designing the four-pound satellite, called a CubeSat. The first task had to be completed before moving on to the second, and so on. Class schedules made it difficult for everyone to get together at the same time.
“A lot of pieces couldn’t be done until the first portion was done,” Brenneke said. “Our timing had to be aligned so the next person could move forward. None of the flight paths could be done until we finished our design. That had to be done a week before the launch.
“Annabelle did a great job of getting the weather planning done and the flight path calculated.”
The CubeSat had four cameras and two GPS-based tracking mechanisms, as well as a radio system used by amateur radio operators. It also had team contact information and a description of what it was so whoever found it could contact the team.
Loveless said students designed their own “not-quite-space-grade instruments” to meet engineering and science objectives while getting hands-on experience in learning about resilient electronics and space systems that can function in extreme environments.
The top priority was to deploy technology safely, track it and recover it.
“We wanted the students to demonstrate the ability to do that,” Loveless said. “They did.”
The plan had the CubeSat achieving peak altitude at eclipse totality. Then the balloon would burst, and the CubeSat would deploy a parachute, descending at an acceptable rate to meet FAA safety protocols for a safe landing. Students would then recover and analyze it.
Students attempted to design a new visual system that took specific images. The four onboard cameras combined those images into a composite to send over a radio channel.
“We built that radio channel and were receiving images in real time,” Loveless said.
Loveless said students changed the power system from what had been previously used to meet their imaging system’s power demands.
“They were trying to transmit data in near real time,” Loveless said. “In order to deal with the new power requirement, they needed a higher power capacity. They deployed a new part that did not have flight heritage on it.”
Pre-flight calculations, which included weather data and factoring in the mass of the satellite and the diameter of the balloon, had the CubeSat landing in western Ohio near the town of Oxford. This assumed everything would go as planned.
It did not.
“That’s to be expected,” Loveless said. “Ninety percent of our time in the lab is making sure the system can tolerate failure.”
The team was prepared to hike for a recovery. The CubeSat’s GPS-based tracking device was accurate within 50 meters. It also had an audio beacon that made a loud noise.
“We knew there was a good chance it would land in flat farmland,” Brenneke said.
The CubeSat was launched near Bloomington an hour before the 3 p.m. eclipse. The ground station in Bloomington received images sent over a radio system for the first 15 minutes before the system shut down. The other sensors, including tracking and temperature devices, stayed on for the entire six-hour flight. Students tracked the CubeSat in real time.
Information was sent over an amateur radio band and picked up by the Automatic Packet Reporting System, which is used by ham radio operators.
The power system failed because it couldn’t tolerate the extreme cold.
Students used commercial electronics, which are designed for zero Celsius, not the 40 to 50 below it experienced. They also had to deal with high-altitude quirks. The jet stream starts around 30,000 feet, and ranges from 3,000 to 7,000 feet high with temperatures well below zero Celsius. Once you reach the stratosphere (it starts just above the jet stream and ends around 50 miles over the Earth), temperatures rise. Loveless said it can warm up to zero degrees Celsius or even room temperature.
While the power system failed, other systems did not.
“It’s a hard lesson to learn, but a real lesson,” Loveless said. “They got real telemetry data that helped inform them on what these kinds of failures are like.”
Under-inflating the helium caused the balloon to rise slower, stay in the jet stream longer (reaching speeds up to 90 miles per hour), and travel farther than expected.
The CubeSat basically followed I-70 and ended up in central Ohio about 100 miles east of Columbus. It landed around 6 p.m. in a rural area near the town of Hebron without causing any damage. Brenneke said the property owner called them saying it was in his front yard area.
Team members, who had begun driving shortly after the eclipse, arrived to pick it up around 9 p.m. The CubeSat was analyzed, and lessons were quickly learned.
“As long as I see the students are moving in a way that we can tolerate these system failures,” Loveless said, “that it doesn’t sacrifice the safety to contribute one of these missions, I’m okay with it.
“They got some images, but not all the images they wanted. They did demonstrate a new radio technology we’d never tried before, and it was successful.”
As for the helium problem, filling the balloon required in-the-field calculating that led to mistakes. Loveless said a new mechanism will be used next time to get it right.
They would get it right, Loveless added. When problems arise on future missions, the next students will get those right, as well.
“It’s being able to adapt in real time to new failures,” Loveless said. “We work hard to train our researchers so they get the data they need. It’s a workforce development mechanism to get people very good at this process.
“The engineering piece is valued in this industry. You adapt, overcome and complete the mission.”