MSU preparing space satellite
MSU preparing space satellite Saved
MSU preparing space satelliteJAMES HAGENGRUBER Of The Gazette Staff
May 15, 2001 11:00 pm • JAMES HAGENGRUBER Of The Gazette StaffLoading…
Mike Obland always liked science, Star Trek and staring at the
stars from his childhood Colstrip home, but he never expected hed
help build Montanas first satellite.
There will be no barbed wire fasteners or cattle brands stamped
to its solar panels, but the satellite is being designed and
constructed largely with homegrown talent at Montana State
Universitys Space Science and Engineering Lab in Bozeman.
Obland, a graduate student, is deputy project manager and
payload specialist for the satellite, which is scheduled for launch
in November. The 23-year-old is returning to Colstrip Thursday to
talk about the satellite project and encourage other students to
Anyone coming out of Colstrip High School can do this kind of
stuff if they put their mind to it, said Obland, who hopes to work
for NASA after earning a doctoral degree in physics.
Obland credits the science classes he took at Colstrip High
School for giving him the background to succeed as an undergraduate
The satellite he is now helping to design and build is named
MEROPE, which is the name of a star in the Pleiades cluster and an
acronym for Montana Earth Orbiting Pico Explorer. A pico, by the
way, is a scientific term for something very, very small, said
David Klumpar, a research professor and director of MSUs Space
Science and Engineering Lab.
The MEROPE satellite will repeat the science mission of Explorer
I, the first U.S. satellite, which was sent to space Feb. 1, 1958.
Explorer I weighed about 25 pounds and carried instruments that
found evidence of belts of radiation circling the earth.
moreinfo Mike Obland, a Colstrip graduate and research
assistant at the Montana State University Space Science and
Engineering Lab, will talk about the development of Montana's first
satellite Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the Bicentennial Library in
For more information on the satellite, visit www.montana.edu/msgc/merope/.
MEROPE packs the same equipment and will search for the same
charged particles but weighs only 2.2 pounds and is about one-third
the size of a loaf of bread. The purpose of MEROPE is not so much
astrophysical discovery as it is hands-on learning, Klumpar
The primary purpose is to get a team of students working
together taking on a significant project, he said.
The project began Jan. 1. Obland and Project Manager George
Hunyadi, also a graduate student, have directed a design and
construction team of up to 50 undergraduate students. The team
members have academic backgrounds ranging from engineering and
physics to business and marketing. The students gain valuable
training for a field that continues to explode in growth four
decades after the Space Age began, Klumpar said.
Theres a tremendous market for young, new talent, he said.
The space business is quite multifaceted, from large to small
Designing a satellite is no easy task  it is rocket science,
after all. The students worked under design specifications from
Stanford Universitys CubeSat Project, which aims to develop small
satellites that will be less expensive to launch into orbit.
All the design and construction work is done in Bozeman, Klumpar
The satellite will hold complex communication and scientific
equipment, but must not weigh more than 2.2 pounds. It will also
carry a compact disc full of names, hometowns and messages sent by
students from across Montana.
MEROPE has a lightweight aluminum frame and is covered by solar
panels. It must withstand vast temperature extremes. On the dark
side of the earth, the satellite will be chilled to colder than
minus-400 degrees. The sun will heat it to above-boiling
temperatures. Special coatings and thermal devices will be used to
keep the components from melting.
The satellite, including launch, is projected to cost less than
$50,000 and is entirely funded through government and private
grants, Klumpar said.
It must be completed by July 23, which is when the small cube
will be shipped to Utah for pre-launch testing. The satellite will
then be shipped to Kazakhstan for a November launch, along with 14
other CubeSats from a variety of U.S. universities.
The CubeSats will be hitching a ride on a Russian Dnepr SS18
rocket, which once functioned as an intercontinental ballistic
missile, Obland said.
Its pretty neat to think it used to carry nuclear warheads and
now it carries student satellites, he said.
The Dnepr rocket will blast off in November from the famed
Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Central Asian desert. Baikonur was once
the Soviet Unions top-secret launch facility.
Some of the Bozeman team will likely be at the launch. Klumpar
said as a physics graduate student in the 1960s, he helped develop
satellite payloads. He said watching the launch is very
Its gut wrenching and I always cry, Klumpar said. I mean,
its just so exciting. These things take years of effort to put a
payload together. Everything is riding on that launch.
The 15 CubeSats are considered secondary payload on the rocket,
which will also be carrying a larger satellite from a customer
with deeper pockets, Klumpar said. It costs $30,000 to launch a
CubeSat, he said.
Once the rocket reaches an orbit 400 miles above the earth,
MEROPE will be released into space by a P-Pod dispenser developed
at California Polytechnic State University. Obland compared the
device to a Pez candy dispenser  a door will open and a spring
will push the small box into the vacuum of space.
The MEROPE satellite will then start circling the earth at about
15,600 mph. The satellite will pass over Montana twice each day.
When the satellite is overhead, students at a Bozeman mission
control center will have between 10 and 15 minutes to download data
and send new instructions to the craft, Obland said.
Students will know the satellites exact location. Unlike large
satellites or space stations, MEROPE is too small to be seen arcing
across the night sky, Klumpar said.
I wouldnt spend a lot of time out there in the cold looking
for it, he said.
Klumpar hopes the satellite continues sending data for at least
four months, which is how long Explorer I remained in contact with
scientists. In the meantime, students will begin working on
additional satellites at MSU.
If everything goes right, well do one per year, Klumpar
MEROPE will likely orbit the earth for several years until
gravity slowly pulls it down. As Montanas first satellite nears
earth, it will start speeding up, eventually going into a spiral
and reaching high temperatures as it plows through the upper
It will eventually be a little, tiny shooting star someplace,