The Swedish Space Corporation. A treasure trove of valuable ideas and insight into the inner workings of the space industry. As a group, our space mission class went there yesterday for an expert meeting. We describe what we are doing, they describe what they are doing, and then we collaborate to get a better understanding of our project and how it is moving along. Apparently, the world is shifting to nanosats and we as a group happen to be on the forefront of this trend. We have almost completed the design of our three craft (preliminary design, of course) and can soon begin the age old process of compromising...or locking ourselves in a room and arguing about who is right. :) No it is not as bad as it sounds, but being creative requires a certain amount of confidence in your ideas as well as the ability to compromise your own desires with that of the group.
On the observational side, we completed our observations with the NOT telescope and are now in the process of data reduction, or analyzing the data in a set order to get the most significant results from our work. This will most be fringe patterns that give information about our targets. Also, we have recently been acquainted with ASPRO, or a software that models information from the VLT. Yes, the VLT...that VLT. It is a wonderful program that helps with learning all about the practice of interferometry in the real world. We learned a good bit about the telescope design and its abilities and how to use different configurations depending on the object you wish to observe. There is much more in this than I first imagined, but it all has reasoning that will blow your mind. Guess you will have to be here to see for yourself.
Anyway, work is calling and I have to answer so talk to you later.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Monday, 7 November 2011
Space, space, and ever more space
So there is this thing called space, and apparently its huge. Unbelievably, mind numbingly huge. And the amount of work devoted to understanding just a small part of it is overwhelming. Well, it is kind of what I signed up for. Currently, I finished up a class called theoretical astrophysics, which I definitely recommend for the first year master students. Mostly because everything in that class is the basis for other classes that you will take.
But that is in the past, let's move to the present...SPACE!! As from late last year, I began a project working on NASA's MMS. Well a small part of it. Just a small project doing quality testing for some Langmuir probes built by the university. Now that project is still underway, but due to some newly discovered heating issues, it has lodged onto a small snag and will be continuing shortly.
Also, I have begun two new classes, SMDP and ObsAstro II. SMDP stands for Space Mission Design Project and it is exactly that. You design a space mission from idea all the way through the feasibility study. It is designed to give students a real world perspective on how "insert random description here" it is in reality (the random description can be any word that is synonymous with hard, fun, frustrating, and rewarding...depending on how you look at it). We have decided to build MATE, which is a set of three scientific satellites designed to study Mars. As the details are highly classified, I cannot go into specifics. :) As for Observational Astrophysics II, we are preparing for a assignment where we get to use the NOT (Nordic Optical Telescope) to view stars and then do data reduction to create what should be some interesting bright circles. Circles may not mean much to you, but if you are like me, and you know that the light from this circle is more than likely many times older than I, then it does indeed become something exciting.
On the thesis front, my project has been determined. I will be doing analysis of Cassini Huygens data from the lower ionosphere of Titan. Titan should be a fairly common word to most readers, but I will indulge those that may need a small reminder. Titan is Saturn's largest moon. It just so happens that this moon has a pretty dense atmosphere filled with organic molecules...hmmm? Life, you may ask? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, For now we will just study the properties of the ions and leave the question of life for another point in time.
Well now it is time to get back to work. It has to be done, someone has to do it, and that someone is me. Hopefully now that things have settled I can keep the updates rolling in more regularly because I am almost to the home stretch and this is the time when things start getting really interesting.
But that is in the past, let's move to the present...SPACE!! As from late last year, I began a project working on NASA's MMS. Well a small part of it. Just a small project doing quality testing for some Langmuir probes built by the university. Now that project is still underway, but due to some newly discovered heating issues, it has lodged onto a small snag and will be continuing shortly.
Also, I have begun two new classes, SMDP and ObsAstro II. SMDP stands for Space Mission Design Project and it is exactly that. You design a space mission from idea all the way through the feasibility study. It is designed to give students a real world perspective on how "insert random description here" it is in reality (the random description can be any word that is synonymous with hard, fun, frustrating, and rewarding...depending on how you look at it). We have decided to build MATE, which is a set of three scientific satellites designed to study Mars. As the details are highly classified, I cannot go into specifics. :) As for Observational Astrophysics II, we are preparing for a assignment where we get to use the NOT (Nordic Optical Telescope) to view stars and then do data reduction to create what should be some interesting bright circles. Circles may not mean much to you, but if you are like me, and you know that the light from this circle is more than likely many times older than I, then it does indeed become something exciting.
On the thesis front, my project has been determined. I will be doing analysis of Cassini Huygens data from the lower ionosphere of Titan. Titan should be a fairly common word to most readers, but I will indulge those that may need a small reminder. Titan is Saturn's largest moon. It just so happens that this moon has a pretty dense atmosphere filled with organic molecules...hmmm? Life, you may ask? Let's not get ahead of ourselves, For now we will just study the properties of the ions and leave the question of life for another point in time.
Well now it is time to get back to work. It has to be done, someone has to do it, and that someone is me. Hopefully now that things have settled I can keep the updates rolling in more regularly because I am almost to the home stretch and this is the time when things start getting really interesting.
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