Future Kentucky Space

[KySat Space readers: the next couple of posts will consist of my live notes from the Kentucky Space Conference '08 session held on Wednesday in Lexington.]

Dr. Jim Lumpp, KySat faculty advisor from the University of Kentucky, will talk briefly about future missions.

Beginning with high altitude balloons, he explains that near-space can be used for a wide variety of things because at 100,000 feet, only one percent of the atmosphere is left.

"You can also look up," he says.

Suborbital missions will continue to play a part in the Kentucky Space program. As a test bed for systems, the experience is invaluable.

Displaying a picture of KySat-1, orbital missions are, of course, critical and picking up a theme of Dr. Malphrus', he says that the infrastructure being built around orbital missions is impressive.

Given enough experience, perhaps a lunar mission is possible. Could a P-Pod ride to the moon and eject a cube for lunar orbit?

The satellites being built at MIT, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley and Stanford are big - cubesats are different and KySat has discussed with each of these schools the possibility of working together to contribute cube technology being developed in-house.

Because CubeSats are such a disruptive technology, he adds, the National Science Foundation is looking to launch 3-6 missions a year to do space weather and atmospheric research.

Transitioning to the current project, KySat-1, Dr. Lumpp says that KySat-1 will be passively magnetically stabilized. Since there is nothing "to lever off of" in space, being able to point cubes will be the subject of future efforts. And he offers this thought: perhaps by inducing an electronic current, a magnetic field can be created. This field could be turned on and off. When it's off, the Earth's magnetic field can take over to passively orient the cube.

It's a brief session and in response to a question, Dr. Lumpp describes how cubes can be used for life sciences research. Pharmasat is doing an E. Coli study, for example.

In fact, he adds, it's the launch opportunities that are holding up science.

Wayne