Designing a descent probe to reconstruct atmospheric density

Our Goal

The Contact Senior Design Team at the University of Idaho is developing a low ballistic coefficient self orienting atmosphere reentry probe to allow the reconstruction of atmospheric density through new measurement techniques. Our probe will be launched from the SOAREX VII sounding rocket platform along with payloads from other universities to help characterize supersonic reentry vehicles for NASA Ames Research Center.

Current Status

Our team is following an aggressive schedule to meet a delivery deadline of March 1st, 2009. We have done initial research into the major concepts surrounding this project that we identified as areas for improvement. Currently we are in our brainstorming phase to develop an initial solution path to our project.

About Us

We're the fall 2008 senior design team at the University of Idaho developing an atmosphere measurement probe for the SOAREX VII sounding rocket platform for NASA. We are a team of 7 students, majoring in mechanical or electrical engineering.