MinnSpecUniversity of Minnesota and Augsburg College

Our Team…Doug Carlson, Bryce Schaefer, Cameron Japuntich,

Liz Sefkow, Mitch Andrus, Chris Larson, Phil Hoffman, Art Graf, Luke Taylor, Juliana Feldhacker, Andrew Healy, Chris Woehrle, Mike Nygaard, Dehang Zheng, Vince Contessa, Ricky Phan, Jason Maier, Megan Holahan, Andrew Sandor, Adam Miller, Mark Landman…

…Our Team…Doug Carlson- Team lead-

Junior Mechanical EngineerBryce Schaefer- Co-Team

lead- Sophomore Aerospace Engineer

Chris Woehrle- AugSpec Team lead- Sophomore Physics major

Art Graf- MinnLase Team lead- Senior Electrical Engineer

Jules Feldhacker- MinnLase Structural lead- Senior Aerospace Engineer

Mission Overview

MinnSpec is a modular team with three separate payloads each with unique but related goals

Each team has a dedicated part of the payload

These teams will be overviewed in the following slides

MinnLaseMinnLase is responsible for

creating the laser spectroscopy chamber and power supply to provide power to each payload

• MinnLase used a near-infrared laser to detect the relative amount of water (humidity) found in Earth’s atmosphere with respect to altitude

• Shown on left is a picture of the power supply, which provides over-voltage and over-current protection to each payload through dedicated DB9 power supply connections

AugSpec The mission of AugSpec was to design

and build a payload that takes ambient light spectroscopy based measurements. We wanted to take these data points at certain positions

These desired points are when the rocket’s window is perpendicular to the horizon; facing the Sun or the Earth.

The purpose of this is to compare and contrast the absorption of light through out the flight. This data can be used to determine Earth’s atmospheric makeup. An IMU (inertial measurement unit) was used to trigger the spectrometer and characterize the flight

Rat’s Nest

MinnRock II

MinnRock I was our 2009 payload created as a 1/3 can experiment based directly off the activities covered in the RockOn! 2008 workshop

MinnRock II involves flight characterization and structural integrity supervision of the current payload

Uses AVR board from our “friends” from Colorado; modified to fit our needs

A few good pictures

Before…

After…

The Rocket…

For Shawn…

And the ponies…

Lesons Learned and Advice

A dedicated team is the most important challenge (seniors and summer jobs…)

Everything takes longer than planned and won’t work the first time

Keep it simple the first time around- then build up from there

These payloads are created from small steps and good documentation- every successful test is a victory

Questions?