UC students create and launch satellites
CubeCats is a student-led undergraduate laboratory that develops aerospace systems
At the University of Cincinnati, students can enrich their experience with dozens of student organizations on campus.
One of these organizations, CubeCats, provides the unique opportunity to design, build, and operate flightworthy aerospace systems like cube satellites and high-altitude balloons. With their most recent balloon launch called “Project Floppa,” the group reached new heights.
The student-led undergraduate research group was created 10 years ago and is made up of two primary programs: CubeSat and the CubeCats Applied Training in Space Exploration or CATiSE.
CubeSats are a specialized class of nanosatellites that use a standardized size and form factor cube measurement. Thus, CubeCats got its name because they are a group of Bearcats making CubeSats.
“As a freshman, CubeCats caught my eye because I saw they were working on a satellite, something you wouldn’t typically see from a student organization,” said Nathan Nguyen, a fourth-year computer science student in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
“Coming into college, I never thought I’d be able to say I was working on a satellite that’s going to be launched into space soon.”
Nathan Nguyen, right, helps develop underclass students' skills through the CubeCats CATiSE program. Photo/Provided
Nguyen was also drawn to CubeCats because he could see a defined pathway for students to grow through the organization. CubeCats is committed to developing their members through its peer-led onboarding program specifically designed to help new members develop their skills.
Each year, students in the program come up with an objective for their high-altitude balloon and work on it until it’s ready for launch.
“We give our CATiSE students a small budget and tell them ‘We want you to launch an HAB’ which is essentially just a weather balloon, and they can decide whatever objective they want,” Nguyen said.
For instance, in previous years, HAB objectives have been things like the tallest egg drop, measuring atmospheric radiation and light-levels, and even testing if pizza could be cooked in a solar oven aboard the balloon. For Project Floppa, the recent launch, the objective was to collect a sample of a cloud for chemical analysis. Project Floppa initially began prior to the pandemic but was canceled along with shutdowns. When normal activity resumed, the team hit the ground running to get the balloon in the air.
In the beginning, everything with the launch looked like it was going to go amazing.
Raihan Rafeek, UC College of Engineering and Applied Science student
Before they could launch, they needed to ensure they had appropriate clearance and permissions from entities including the FAA, the university, and more, as well as the appropriate weather conditions. After being delayed so long because of the pandemic, the group hoped they would have a smooth, easy flight.
“In the beginning, everything looked like it was going to go amazing. We had the permissions we needed, the weather was alright, and everything was lining up,” said Raihan Rafeek, a third-year computer science student.
However, as they were packing to head to French Park in Cincinnati, the launch site, they found a major problem: the GPS system was gone. The entire mission ground to a halt because it’s not legal to launch anything without a way to track it. After hours of searching, trying to find an alternative, and eventually deciding to delay the launch, the GPS system was finally found in an old, abandoned box.
With no way to measure how much helium they were putting into the balloon, CubeCats gave it their best guess. Photo/Provided
The next morning, the team headed to the launch site with the payload box, which holds all elements necessary for the flight, the helium tank, and two balloons, one for launch, and one for backup if needed.
“When we got there, we ran into issues we didn’t account for. For example, we knew that our balloon needed a certain number of cubic feet of helium, but there’s no way to measure that when filling it,” Nguyen said.
So, the group just started filling.
“We thought we could eyeball it. We start filling it up and the balloon gets huge and starts pulling on the people holding it up, so we decide it’s ready and to let it go,” Rafeek said.
To their dismay, it was not ready. When the balloon was let go, it went up and came right back down. Now, they were down to one balloon, which meant one chance to make this launch a success. The team attached the second balloon to the payload, which now had two balloons, and filled it much more than the first one.
“When we let the payload go the second time, with two massive balloons on it, we noticed a tree line about 50 feet away and hoped it wouldn’t hit it,” Nguyen said. “But the minute we let go, it went straight vertical.”
Based on their initial calculations, the team expected the payload to land somewhere near the Ohio-Kentucky-West Virginia border. They estimated that once it hit an altitude of 30,000 meters, it would pop. However, after launch, when looking at the app, the group realized it measured the altitude in feet, not meters. When the tracker said 30,000 and the payload was across the border, they realized they were only a third of the way to their expected altitude.
Eventually, the tracker began showing negative altitude values, leading them to believe the balloon had popped and it was falling rapidly. Upon closer look, the tracker was unable to provide data because the balloon was at a higher altitude than it was programmed to detect. Realizing the HAB was not going to land where they initially thought, they looked at the average ascent rate of the balloon and came up with a new, yet unclear, prediction. The payload could land somewhere in small town Virginia, or in the ocean.
After losing contact with the tracker, the CubeCats team received a call that their payload landed safely in a small town in Virginia. Photo/Provided
“We essentially lost contact with it somewhere over West Virginia. Based off new predictions, it was supposed to land at 8 p.m., but there was still no signal,” Nguyen said. “We figured it was somewhere in the ocean and wrote it off as a successful launch with lessons for next year.”
The next morning, Nguyen woke up to a phone call from a number with a Virginia area code.
“In my mind I’m thinking this is a dream. I pick up the phone and the person on the other line says, ‘I found your weather balloon,’” Nguyen said.
The balloon landed in the backyard of a nursing home in Fredericksville, Virginia. Luckily, it landed in a one mile stretch of land between two major rivers and was able to be recovered. The man who found it shipped it back to the team and they were able to celebrate a successful project Floppa after many unexpected circumstances.
The payload traveled from Cincinnati to Virginia. Photo/Provided
Upon receiving it and reviewing what happened to the balloon during flight, they realized the presence of both balloons, although one was not sufficiently inflated, made a major impact on its travel.
“Because the second balloon was so inflated, it went up to a much higher altitude than we imagined, and because of the winds, it covered a lot more ground,” Rafeek said.
Unfortunately, the cloud water collected was lost during shipping, but the team was able to recover hours of video footage of Project Floppa’s journey.
CubeCats is open to all students and is always looking for new members. Reach out to them if you are interested in joining!
Featured image at top: The CubeCats team launched their high-altitude balloon from Cincinnati's French Park. Photo/Provided
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