Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
BALLOON RAISING. Students from the University of Idaho prepare a large balloon by filling it with helium on the lawn of Benge School before an early morning launch of the balloon and monitoring equipment. The effort is part of the Research Involving Student Engineers project.
The front lawn of the Benge school was once again the site of an early-morning launch of a NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium project on Aug. 19.
The ISGC funds a program in Idaho called the Idaho RISE (Research Involving Student Engineers) Near Space Engineering Program.
There are RISE programs at Idaho State University, Northwest Nazarene and The University of Idaho. North Idaho College is just beginning a program, and we currently have programs working with UI at Moscow High School and Genesee High School.
According to Professor Dave Atkinson, faculty coordinator, “The purpose of Idaho RISE is to provide students with the chance to experience aerospace engineering by designing, building, testing, and operating high altitude instruments carried into Near Space under a balloon. We have reached 100,000 feet once, and usually reach 80,000-90,000 feet. At these altitudes, the sky is black and you can see the curvature of the Earth. We are actually at the lower edge of space.”
Led by Kevin Ramus, the Benge launch featured the Snowflake project. The project is in conjunction with NASA Ames and NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory).
“Snowflake is a parafoil system that we carry to 30,000 feet or higher (eventually we want to get upward of 70,000 feet) and release,” Atkinson said on Aug. 19. “The parafoil will then glide to Earth where it will be recovered. Snowflake and all the RISE capsules carry GPS and we receive position data (latitude, longitude, and altitude) throughout the flight, so we are able to retrieve all of the flight hardware.
“For Snowflake, NASA Ames is interested in how parafoils will operate in the very thin air at high altitudes. Someday parafoils may be used to safely delivery space probes and other space hardware through the atmosphere to the ground.”
Previous project sites have included Benge, Washtucna, Hooper, Wilcox and Spangle. Students were planning another Idaho RISE launch in Washtucna in September, weather permitting.
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