Kentucky Space

Presentations from CubeSat Developer's Workshop now online

[Kentucky Space readers, by the end of this week, I'll be blogging exclusively on the Kentucky Space web site. Please note: If you're taking the blog feed, it has changed. Use this feed URL instead if you consume Kentucky Space in Google Reader or a client like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire.]

Presentations from the CubeSat Developer's Workshop at which Kentucky Space was prominently featured have been made available.

They include results from Kentucky Space's most recent suborbital, Morehead State University professor Bob Twiggs' "Tubesat" presentation, a proposal to fly glioblastoma cancer cells using the new CubeLab standard, and a description of the CubeLab standard itself.

Presentation videos appear here.

Wayne

CubeSat, Kentucky Space, Space

Kentucky Space exhibiting at "Bio"

Kentucky Space is excited to have a presentation booth within the Kentucky BIO Pavilion at BIO in Chicago, IL. May 3rd – May 6th. The BIO International Convention is the largest global event for the biotechnology industry.

As part of the Kentucky Space Exomedicine research initiative, we are looking forward to meeting potential biotechnology partners interested in performing microgravity research on the International Space Station.

Wayne

Video: "The CubeLab Standard"

Recorded at the recent CubeSat Developer's Workshop, University of Kentucky graduate student Daniel Erb described CubeLabs^tm and the opportunities, based on this new standard, for low cost, repeatable microgravity research aboard the International Space Station.

^Wayne

CubeSat, Kentucky Space, Space

The Rocket Project

Sony and Intel are sponsoring a student-built rocket, and have produced this video that captures some of the excitement. Have a look.

It's good to see this kind of interest in young makers.

Wayne

Second Kentucky-built host for "plug and play" microlabs bound for ISS

Following the successful delivery of the first NanoRacks Platform on Shuttle Discovery earlier this month, the second such unit is manifested aboard Atlantis, designated STS-132, for May.

This photo shows the Astrotech payload processing facility at Port Canaveral, Fla., where workers dressed in "bunny suits" lift a cargo pallet into the Russian-built Mini-Research Module-1. The second platform is stowed in this module for flight.

The NanoRacks Platform powers up to 16 individual "CubeLabs," each of which can host microgravity research experiments. This standard method for doing microgravity research offers many more organizations an opportunity to do repeatable, cost efficient work in the bio-sciences, for example.

With regularly scheduled trips to the station, Kentucky Space is now working with organizations to put their experimental programs on the ISS.

Wayne

Photo Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett March 18, 2010

What if space were the solution?

Tom Eblen, Lexington Herald-Leader columnist, writes about the potential impact of space exploration in Kentucky, helpfully pointing out that it's not just about rockets and engineering:

What’s important to understand about this space research is that it isn’t about space. It’s about how earthly cells and molecules react and change in the micro-gravity environment of space. The economic and social implications of that research could be huge.

For example, most medical research about how humans react to micro-gravity has been focused on preventing harm to astronauts. But space could have beneficial effects on cells that might lead to more effective treatments for various diseases and conditions. Research already is being conducted on the space station to see how micro-gravity changes bacteria, which could lead to more effective vaccines for dangerous salmonella and staph infections.

'What could the applications of all of this be? The answer is, we don’t know, which is the foundation for all science,' Kimel said. 'Many scientific breakthroughs come when you’re looking for something else.'

Wayne

CubeSat, Kentucky Space, Space

Video recap of Frontier mission

Incorporating launch and ground station footage, Kentucky Space students describe the "Frontier" mission that took place in late March from Wallops. Congratulations to all the team members on a successful mission!

Wayne

CubeSat, Kentucky Space, Space

NanoRacks, Kentucky Space hardware being transferred to ISS

Here is a terrific view from NASA television of the logistics module in Discovery's bay prior to being lifted out and attached to the International Space Station.

The hatch between the two was opened earlier this morning and supplies, including the NanoRacks platform and two CubeLabs, will soon be moved to their permanent places inside the station to begin work.

Wayne

Building a Future overhead

Kentucky Space had the opportunity yesterday to talk about its work at the 6th annual Kentucky Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference in Lexington, which for one day was the undisputed intellectual capital of the commonwealth.

In brief presentations to the attendees at the first general session, Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, which is the managing partner for Kentucky Space, described how breakthroughs in science bring wealth, not just jobs. For a state like Kentucky, which leans heavily on well known and traditional industries, supporting this kind of innovation is critically important. Locations with concentrations of technical and human capital attract talent and investment. It's a virtuous cycle.

Later in the day, Kentucky Space students Jason Bratcher and Samir Rawashdeh detailed the work being done in Kentucky Space to develop a particular kind of talent and unique technologies during an extended poster display by organizations and companies doing cutting edge work in the commonwealth. With the recent launches of Frontier-1 and Monday's Discovery flight playing on a looping video nearby, passersby, who work with nano-technologies, and in the medical and material sciences themselves, were sufficiently impressed and many lingered to chat. The words "Kentucky" and "Space" next to each other have a certain shock value. But given its emphasis on building small spacecraft doing low cost, high value science, given the recent successes in launching these Kentucky-built craft, given the potential for standardized research in "plug and play" micro-labs built by students in Kentucky and set to be delivered by the now-docked Discovery (video below), that unfamiliarity may not last. Long known for its product on grassy field and beneath eastern mountain, Kentucky, instead, could become a place where talented people choose to stay and find discovery overhead.

Wayne

CubeSat, Kentucky Space, Space

Countdown to new era in microgravity research

After all the months of hard work, of the long days put in by everyone from the Houston team to Kentucky students, we are now in the countdown to the scheduled Monday launch of the NanoRacks Platform on board Shuttle Discovery, STS-131.

The platform is scheduled to be inserted permanently on board the International Space Station’s U.S. National Laboratory. The platform is for me — and for all of us — a work of elegant art. It represents the best of engineering principals: hardware that is functional and efficient. The platform will allow up to 16 experiments using the CubeSat form factor, a design and shape known to university and researchers world wide. We call them CubeLabs — named by Kris Kimel of Kentucky Space, our major partner.

Not that it was simple to develop this platform. It took the experience of our Houston team, the enthusiasm of students in Kentucky Space and the creativity of everyone involved. What is simple is the premise: that through use of standardized hardware, the cost of space station utilization will be dramatically lowered.

Our idea is already working, we have signed five commercial customers from the Valley Christian High School and Quest Institute to a new pharmaceutical crystal growth effort. That is really exciting for all of us.

But now comes the countdown — I’m heading down this weekend for the launch and to see old friends and begin my own new journey, to promote and market the commercial utilization of our section of the U.S. Space Station National Laboratory. I'm glad that Jim Lumpp from the University of Kentucky will be there. NanRack’s Mike Johnson is staying in Houston because this veteran of so many launches and space engineering projects is just too blasé to be at the Cape! Mike says he would have been there but it's Easter.

Countdowns are nervous - whether cargo ships or manned. This one more so for all of us at NanoRacks and Kentucky Space, but the mission of STS-131 is one heck of a way to launch a new business!

Jeffrey Manber