Space Program Comes to Gabriel Park

Well, we discovered something interesting in the Park today...

The family dropped by Gabriel Park for a short time around 6:30 this evening, so Jr. Villager could have some bike-riding practice. Upon pulling into the parking lit, we noticed a tent set up, covering a table with several computers and what looked like a video feed. This whole setup was wired to a contraption that looked like a couple of shotgun mics on some sort of plywood shoulder-mount rig, affixed to a large tripod. There was also some sort of radio antenna. We wondered what this group of people was up to. I mentioned to Mrs. Villager that we should go over and find out the deal, that it might make for an interesting 'blog post.

However, dinner time called and we headed out without investigating. Until we were driving back up Vermont and noticed another tent, this one with what appeared to be a large radio antenna out front. I truned the car around to investigate and when we got closer wo found that it wasn't an antenna at all, but a rocket and a big one too.



Jr. Villager was fascinated, and so was I. We walked over to find out the deal. Turns out that this rig belongs to the Portland State Aerospace Society, and they were indeed testing radio and communications for an upcoming launch!

Details are on their TWiki site (definition), linked above, but in a nutshell here's the deal: This was an "LV2 System Test Day", during which the launcher was set up (sans solid fuel) and communcations were tested. Apparently there had been another test day at the park last week (on the 3rd) as well. The current rocket is being prepped for a launch on August 20th in Brothers, OR. and is expected to send the rocket up to 25,000 feet in the air. Did I mention that the rocket has a live video feed? This must have been what I saw on the screen down at the parking lot. This thing is a big deal, it's backed by a NASA grant, among others. If I'm in town on the 20th, I might just trek out to Brothers to see the thing take off!

Here's more info about PSAS, and again, the full story is on their site.

The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is an educational aerospace project at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. The group consists of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff of PSU, and local community members- ranging from high school students to engineers in industry- who are interested in aerospace engineering.

PSAS is based out of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSU, and has members and advisors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering departments.

Our vision statement – or long term goal – is to “put nanosatellites into orbit”. That’s an absurdly hard undertaking when you consider the technical, logistical and financial issues involved. So although we will probably never get there, having this goal allows us to ask the question, “what’s the first step in the process?”

We decided that the first step towards orbiting nanosatellites is to develop an inexpensive, highly modular and actively guided sounding rocket. Sounding rockets are small to medium-sized rockets that are "suborbital" - meaning they can reach extreme altitudes, but then fall down back to the Earth (i.e., they don't go into orbit). Sounding rockets are useful for scientific research in such fields as astronomy, earth science, materials science, and of course, in engineering.

Our rockets fall into the class of “amateur rocketry” – smaller than commercial rockets, larger than model rockets. We certainly have not build the biggest or highest altitude amateur rocket, but we do hope that we’re building one of the most sophisticated.

That was an interesting walk in the park. You never know what you'll discover around here. Isn't Portland cool?