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| Preparing
for PharmaSat |
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- CREST students are preparing for
the launch of the NASA PharmaSat spacecraft, which
is currently being prepared for launch from Wallops
Island in early May. PharmaSat will measure
the influence of microgravity upon yeast resistance
to an antifungal agent. Santa Clara University
students will be conducting all mission operations
for the PharmaSat mission, and students from Ohlone
College designed the web-based beacon processing
service that will allow amateur radio operators to
share satellite data that they receive from the
satellite's HAM beacon. Students from CalPoly
provided the PPOD launcher that will deploy
PharmaSat from the Minotaur launch vehicle.
Additional resources
regarding PharmaSat:
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The GeneSat-1 Technology Demonstration Mission
CREST students continue
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the NASA GeneSat-1 spacecraft, 2 1/2 years after its
launch, as part of a wide variety of educational
activities. GeneSat-1 was developed through a collaboration
between NASA Ames Research Center, industry, and local
universities, and focused on the development and flight test
of a fully-automated, miniaturized spaceflight system
that provides life support and nutrient delivery, and
performs assays for genetic changes in E. coli.
More information on GeneSat-1 is available at the GeneSat-1
Mission Home Page. Flight results are summarized in
a recent AIAA
Small Satellite Conference paper
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| Collaborating
on Multi-Robot Collaboration |
- Students and researchers at
UC Santa Cruz and Santa Clara University are engaged in
new research work aimed at improving the
robot/operator ratio for conducting robotic missions
that use multiple robots. This work combines UCSC's
expertise in spoken language interfaces with SCU's
innovations in multi-robot cluster control. The
work use's SCU's experimental 10-robot land rover
system, an NSF-sponsored research testbed available to
CREST partners.
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CREST
has been selected to conduct a new research program in
the development of robotic sensors, systems and
algorithms for supporting advanced science missions
relating to astrobiology. The program, Robotic
Exploration Technologies IN Astrobiology (RETINA) will
support the development of several robotic platforms and
novel sensors in addition to funding a number of
outreach events during the current fiscal year.
- Primary development
efforts in this program include the development of a
shallow-water SWATH boat for bathymetric mapping, a
prototype of which is shown below. CREST
students, along with researchers and engineers from
NOAA's West Coast and Polar Regions Undersea
Research Center as well as from the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute recently published articles
on the development of this system in the Marine
Technology Society Journal and the Proceedings of
the IEEE 2008 Oceans Conference.
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