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INNOVATION BUSINESS GADGETRY
MAKING ROCKET SCIENCE
A LITTLE EASIER
Over the past few years, the big idea in
space technology has actually been very
small—about the size of a half-gallonmilk
carton, in fact. It’s called a cube satellite,
an inexpensive research probe that piggy-
backs into orbit on NASA or commercial
space flights, allowing for a greater variety
of avant-garde projects by smaller research
groups. Several cubesats are already
circling the earth; one of the latest crop,
a probe named Firefly built by NASA
scientist Doug Rowland and Siena College’s
AllanWeatherwax, will head up next sum-
mer to study the potential link between
lightning and atmospheric radiation (a.k.a.
terrestrial gamma rays). Here’s how they’ll
do it.
BY JACQUELINE DETWILER
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
NOVEMBER 2012
•
ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES PROVOST
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Firefly has optical detectors and radio
emissions receivers to find lightning, a gamma ray
detector to find radiation, solar cells for power, an
onboard computer to do calculations, a GPS unit
and a radio transmitter to send data home. The
two scientists and their students—with the help of
an in-house engineer—built small versions of all
of these themselves.
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Before taking flight, Fireflywill undergo vibra-
tion testing at NASA to ensure it won’t disintegrate
or cause problems during the launch. “Sincewe’re
not the primary payload, we can’t interferewith
anything else,” saysWeatherwax. “They don’t
mind taking us up, but they don’t want the satellite
to fall apart, blowup ormess up some $500million
TimeWarner satellite that’s going up too.”
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Finally, Rowland andWeatherwax have to
find a suitable host rocket. “Wewould like to go
over the equatorial region, where there’s a lot of
lightning, sowe’ll give certain parameters, like
our altitude andwhat latitudes wewant to cover.
Then theNational Science Foundationworks with
theNavy or other agencies to get us a ride,” says
Weatherwax. “Basically, we go in the trunk.”
HOW IT’S DONE
