Clemson University Student Space Program (CUSSP)

Current Projects

Spaceflight Mission Design CI (Training Program)

Taught and run by other undergraduates in CUSSP, the goal of this project is to teach all new students to the group a number of hard skills, ranging from soldering, 3D printing, and electronics, as well as soft skills, such as collaboration, communication, and problem solving. Groups of 3-5 students follow a mock sounding rocket mission by first defining a science goal for their mission and create critical design review presentation that follows the NASA rocket mission guidelines. Following this students will construct their payload and ultimately launch their model rocket mission.

RockSat-X Mission

The NASA RockSat-X Mission is a student sounding rocket mission launching out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in August 2024. The Clemson team is flying a Langmuir probe and mechanical boom system in order to accurately quantify plasma density and temperature throughout the Ionosphere during spaceflight via direct interaction with the plasma. Pictured below are the electrical and mechanical designs of the payload.

Fixed Bias Langmuir Probe

A Langmuir Probe is an instrument designed for a sounding rocket that takes measurements of plasma density and temperature in the atmosphere, specifically the E-region of the ionosphere. In order to distinguish the two variables, a dual probe design will be utilized. This project was taken on during the spring of 2022 and is still a work in progress. Currently, the electronics are being finalized by creating a PCB board. The mechanical design of this project stands as a future task.

Ionospheric Chirp Sounder

The motivation is to develop a low space, weight, and power ionospheric chirp sounder for future rocket mission use. An Arduino based device created by GRA-AFCH that contains an AD9910 frequency synthesizer chip is used to produce a high frequency signal. The Arduino Mega 2560 is then used for commands and control of the device. The Arduino device produces a chirp wave where the frequency sweeps up and down in a sawtooth pattern. The next steps are to do field testing to see its capabilities for ionospheric applications.