We plan to develop a spacecraft design curriculum in our honors college and use the proposed mission aboard a cubesat platform as its laboratory component. During the two years of this project,…

This is a $198,115.51 cooperative agreement awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) to develop a spacecraft design curriculum and CubeSat mission for hands-on undergraduate education. The project, called "Space HAUC", will provide students across different majors the opportunity to gain practical experience in spacecraft and instrument design, development, integration, testing, and operations over the two-year performance period. UMass Lowell will partner with BAE Systems and Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to provide mentorship and access to environmental testing facilities. This award does not have a set-aside designation.

We plan to develop a spacecraft design curriculum in our honors college and use the proposed mission aboard a cubesat platform as its laboratory component. During the two years of this project, undergraduate students WUI gain hands-on experience in a broad range of spaceflight technology topics, such as, spacecraft and instrument design, hardware development, control theory, integration and tests, and remote spacecraft operations, as well as data analysis. The undergraduate students with different backgrounds, for example, science and engineering, will team up and participate in this research and development effort for the equivalent of two courses. Graduate students involved in on going spaceflight missions for their PH.d. Dissertation work will serve as mentors to the student teams. Space hauc's faculty team includes members who led a student launch program sounding rocket experiment, spectre, numerous sounding rocket and balloon experiments, and held leadership roles in a university class explorer mission, terriers. In addition to the umass lowell administration, we are fortunate to receive strong support from two world renowned aerospace organizations. BAE systems has pledged to allow US use their environmental facilities at no cost. In addition, a systems engineer from charles stark draper laboratory and three veteran engineers from BAE systems will mentor the students and participate side by side with the umass lowell team to make space hauc an unqualified success.