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The
GeneSat-1 Technology Demonstration Mission
The GeneSat-1 mission is
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of NASA Ames Research Center, industry, and local
universities focused on the development and flight test
of a fully-automated, miniaturized spaceflight system
that provides life support and nutrient delivery, and
performs assays for genetic changes in E. coli. The
mission was launched in December 2006 from Wallops
Flight Facility.
CREST universities
involved in the project included Cal Poly (providing the
PPOD launch ejector), San Jose State University
(providing early management support), Santa Clara
University (providing mission operations and
management), and Stanford University (providing early
bus prototyping services). In the photo above,
CREST students perform command and telemetry operations
with GeneSat-1 from the NASA Ames Multi-Mission
Operations Center. CREST also managed the
GeneSat-1 outreach program, which included the
involvement of hundreds of amateur radio operators
around the world who tracked the satellite and tuned
into its radio beacon in order to study the operation of
the satellite.
Additional resources
regarding GeneSat-1:
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| UPCOMING
MISSIONS |
- Over the next 3
months, CREST students will be conducting a wide
range of field missions in support of a variety of
externally sponsored initiatives. A few of
these include:
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- Lake
Tahoe ROV Mission: Students and
researchers from University of Nevada at Reno
will team with Santa Clara students and
researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey in
order to map tsunami-generated boulder ridges
and to explore ancestral lakebeds in Lake
Tahoe in May 2008.
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- NanoSail-D
and PreSat Spacecraft Missions: Cal Poly
and Santa Clara students are teaming with NASA
Ames Research Center to launch and operate two
technology demonstration spacecraft to be
launched in June 2008.
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| CREST
has been selected to conduct a new research program in
the development of robotic sensors, systems and
algorithms for supporting advanced science missions
relating to astrobiology. The program, Robotic
Exploration Technologies IN Astrobiology (RETINA) will
support the development of several robotic platforms and
novel sensors in addition to funding a number of
outreach events during the current fiscal year. In
mid-February, key personnel from Santa Clara University,
the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute celebrated the opening of a
new RETINA office in the CREST facility. |
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| Collaborating
on Multi-Robot Collaboration |
| Students and researchers at
UC Santa Cruz and Santa Clara University are engaged in
new research work aimed at improving the
robot/operator ratio for conducting robotic missions
that use multiple robots. This work combines UCSC's
expertise in spoken language interfaces with SCU's
innovations in multi-robot cluster control. The
work will use SCU's experimental 10-robot land rover
system, an NSF-sponsored research testbed available to
CREST partners. |
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