Communications has two branches director (Nathan Persall) and assistant (Julia Laningham)
1.0 Introduction
Venus, the second planet from the Sun, is known for being the hottest overall planet in the solar system, but it is still the most similar planet to Earth as far as size and distance from the Sun. This is where the team derived its slogan “Fighting Earth’s Evil Twin” Due to the latest mission from Venus (Venus Express) there has been a resurgence of scientific interest towards Earth’s closest celestial neighbor aside from the moon. For this reason, the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) based InSPIRESS outreach program has challenged high school students across Alabama to design a hypothetical payload to explore Venus. UAH has proposed a 4 year mission that would utilize an orbiter, a balloon, and a lander. Teams have a choice of deploying from any of these 3 mechanisms with specific limiting factors such as weight, space, and safety. It will take the UAH spacecraft 160 days to reach Venus and then the mission will lapse into a 6 month aero braking orbit before settling into its final orbit and it will remain in this orbit for around 2 years. On the recent mission “Venus Express” a surprising “cold layer” has been discovered around 125 kilometers above Venus’ surface. To meet this challenge, Team S.H.I.E.L.D. (Students Helping Intelligent Engineers Land Drones) has developed spherical drones named Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man for the purpose of finding the composition, measuring the temperature, and calculating the overall displacement as our drones travel through the cold layer. The team chose these names for payload concepts in keeping with the Marvel Comic characters associated with our theme.
Concept 1 (Thor)
Concept 1, designated Thor, employs the use of multiple spherical drones loaded inside a cylindrical tube. Pressurized helium from the Orbiter would be forced through a funnel to push a plate to propel the drones from the cylinder in a pinball effect. See Figure 1 which shows the orginial sketch representing three drones each unshielded, with holes intersecting where the instruments lie. Figure 2 is a CAD drawing for one of the drones.
Concept 2 (Captain America)
Concept 2, designated Captain America, involved the use of three separate tubes with a single shielded drone inside of each. The pressurized helium from the Orbiter would be used to push a plate that would propel the drone propel the drone from each of the tubes. Figure 3 shows the original sketch with shielded drones. Figure 4 is a CAD drawing of the shielded drone.
Concept 3 (Iron Man)
Concept 3, designated Iron Man, is a combination of the first two concepts. Team S.H.I.E.L.D believes that to maximize the precision of the measurements Iron Man will use the single tube design. It will also have the drones shrouded in individual casings that will break apart by using a timer. Figure 5 for the original sketch. Figure 6 is the CAD drawing demonstrating the launching of drones from a single cylindrical tubeplace for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.
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