Team members:
- Brandon Gilles
- James Gorman
- Eric McIntyre
- Gabe Thatcher
DANDE team members have agreed to take on a project under Space Grant called DANDE which is an acronym for Drag and Atmosphere Neutral Density Explorer. The DANDE satellite that we will be helping with will be used to study the thin upper atmosphere by taking readings and sending measured data back to earth via an RF signal. DANDE measures atmospheric density variations using an array of highly-sensitive accelerometers, and atmospheric composition and local wind direction using a WATS (Wind And Temperature Spectrometer). This satellite will have a multitude of data collecting devices which will save their processed data to a local flash memory for later transfer to a ground station via RF.
An entire satellite is a huge project that can take many years to finalize and have ready for launch. For this reason our Capstone project will not be the entire satellite, but only the Command and Data Handler. The CDH section on this satellite will require us to connect all the devices and setup a communication protocol. The design that will be finished by the end of Capstone will be the fully functional satellite without size constraints. This means that all of the components will be laid out on a lab bench, connected, and working as it would in orbit.