Student Launch’s payload this year is centered around collecting soil samples and designing and building a habitat for “STEMnauts”, LEGO figurines who act as astronauts. Additionally, teams must also have the capability of testing these soil samples. The Construction & Structures team focuses on building the launch vehicle, and the Avionics & Recovery team has been working on parachute deployment and new altimeters. A new team, Research & Development was added to test the implementation of airbrakes and nosecone cameras.
Currently, the team has finished their Proposal, Preliminary Design Review, and Critical Design Review. Two successful subscale launches were done as well. The final launch will occur in late April, at Huntsville, Alabama.
Inspired By A Boilermaker
Andrew Feustel attended Purdue and received a Bachelor of Science degree in solid earth sciences in 1989, as well as a Master of Science degree in geophysics in 1991. He then received a PhD in geological sciences at Queen’s University. Feustel then worked in industry for five years before working for NASA. He trained as a mission specialist for two years, and his first mission was STS-125. In this mission, Feustel performed three spacewalks to fix the Hubble Space Telescope. He was also a mission specialist for the STS-134 mission. Feustel returned to space seven years later on Expedition 55, where he served as a flight engineer, and then as the ISS commander on Expedition 56. He then served as Deputy Chief of the NASA Astronaut Office until 2022.
