Monitoring Van Allen From The ISS

Energised Particle Radiation

The Experiment at a Glance (as of Wednesday 20th

September 2017)Our team was created through the

passion and determination of one student who

School: Le Fevre High School

Principal: Robert Shepherd

Teachers: Nicholas Kyriazis, Thierry Herman

Presenters: Deklan Soeroes, Lachlan Landreth, James Finn, Rhys Kenny, Omar, Dan, Seb

Author: Deklan Soeroes and the LFHS Space Crew

Sponsored by;

Industry/Tertiary Partners

Abstract - The aim of our experiment is to measure ionised sub-atomic particle radiation from the inner Van Allen belt; recording the energy levels of the

electrons and energised protons in this region. Most of the recording will take place over the South Atlantic Anomaly where the inner belt can lower to a roughly

200km altitude, where the ISS will pass through.Foreign Industry/Tertiary Connections

D.I.P.P.

brought this challenge to our school from DECD. As a self-selected team of tenacious STEM oriented teens we have worked tirelessly, giving up most of our lunches and spare time after school to dedicate ourselves to this mission. As of now we have designed the shell of our mission, ready for interior structural mountings. This design will remain a dynamic document as we receive industry influence, refinement and expert feedback. Under the recommendation of Neumann Space we plan to use 6061 or 6063 aluminium alloy for structural support. We are currently investigating the use of polyethylene based RXF1 as structural support material due to being 3 times the tensile strength of aluminium, yet 2.6 times lighter. For internal fixtures and mountings we are experimenting with various designs made from Polymethyl Methacrylate (Acrylic) as it is light weight and our school has the capability to design with this material. The clear acrylic may also provide safe protection yet optimal viewing for a streaming camera we plan to mount in our experiment to display footage of Earth, easily accessible to inspire young scientific minds. The building materials we plan to use have been specifically chosen to maximise mass allowance for more electronic components.

Components we hope to include in our experiment module are our sensor, primary Raspberry Pi 3 B and back up Raspberry Pi 3 B as our main computing module (backup necessary in case primary Pi becomes inoperable or to be used as a compute module for smaller sensors). We are collaborating with our industry connections to devise the best computing set up for the sensor that we will implement in our experiment, as mass and power limitations need to be considered. Other components such as camera, accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, and Geiger counter are being considered for implementation to open up other avenues of research for our school and to develop space industry inspiration in the career prospects of our peers.

After several weeks of research, we have sourced and are able to outline three viable sensors capable of undertaking our specialised experiment. The REPTile, Timepix 3 and CMOS Active Pixel Sensor have all been tested and used in the application of detecting electrons and ionised particles to record their energy levels and other properties.

The Relativistic Electron and Proton Telescope integrated little experiment (REPTile) was implemented in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE). The CSSWE team designed this sensor specifically for the application in a CubeSat; hence its size is perfect for our experiment. However there is one major problem with REPTile being a mass of 1.25kg. The CSSWE unfortunately ended 3 years ago, however our team is currently in communications with CSSWE’s ex-Project Manager Lauren Blum whom is currently working at NASA’s Goddard Space Centre as a Research Astrophysicist. She is helping us enquire and contact other researchers about reducing the mass of REPTile in order to be viable in our experiment. Although our team is looking at the possibility of REPTile, we must consider more viable options for sensing technology.

The Timepix3, is definitely our most viable sensor option, however we wish to exhaust all possibilities of using REPTile before fully considering Timepix3.

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Figure 1 - Cross sectional view of CSSWE's REPTile (Courtesy CSSWE)

Figure 2 - Exploded view of the REPTile and its components (Courtesy CSSWE)

Nevertheless Timepix3 being our back-up sensor option, we are investigating it as much as possible. It is relatively light-weight and USB connected, perfect for a Raspberry Pi computing unit. The sensing chip was developed at CERN in 2013, however many experiments run with Timepix3 involve multiple chips stacked together. This could be problematic for our design. A paper we found during our research stated that Timepix chips, coupled with semi-conductive sensors have “Good spatial and energy resolution, low level of noise, compact size and radiation hardness…” Our team has taken this into careful consideration considering our experiments mass and size limitations. As we understand, the Timepix works more efficiently with multiple modules, creating an issue with available volume in our experiment. We are currently trying to contact the author of the 2015 paper (Alexey Gustav) in the hopes of working with him and his co-authors to develop the Timepix/semiconductor sensor (see Linkages to Industry and Tertiary Institutions for more details). However if this contact fails we have other resources to possibly source a Timepix3 sensor via The University of Adelaide’s Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing, or CERN.

A CMOS Active Pixel Sensor is similar to Timepix as our current research stands. Our team has kept main research focus on Timepix and REPTile as CMOS APS has appeared to be more difficult to source. Very little research in to CMOS APS has been conducted from our point of view and therefore we acknowledge it may be viable but isn’t realistic for our experiment.

Members of the team are currently drawing components of the experiment in Autodesk Inventor Pro. This will give us the ability to thoroughly experiment with various designs and the positioning of components before we head into the prototyping phase of our experiment. We hope that this clears most imperfections in our design whilst enabling to carefully plan our spending of budget funds. Our main experiment relating to the measurement of energised sub-atomic particle energies has proved to be a challenge to address. However we keep it as our main focus in the progression of our engineering design process. Added components and extra available space not dedicated to the main mission we be utilised after main experiment is planned, providing we are still within the limitations of the experiment.

Development of the Experiment through the Engineering Design Process Our team entered this competition in the hope of operating like a true industry engineering team to achieve a common goal for the betterment of scientific endeavour, ourselves and others. Four out of the seven team members have currently been studying Naval Engineering, taught by South Australian STEM Secondary School Educator of the Year, Thierry Herman. The skills they have acquired during the completion of projects in this subject has given our group a sound foundation for our engineering design process as Naval assessments are run much like an engineering firm. This is in the sense that sub-teams are created to work on certain areas of the project and maintain communications with the other groups to sophisticatedly plan the entire time line of the project. In conjunction with this is, the knowledge of time management and planning we gained from two of our members involved in the SUBS in Schools program which our team has desperately needed. With strong and stable roots in the engineering design process, our team dived straight in to developing our experiment.

In weeks prior to the completion of the EOI, our group set weekly meeting times and a plan to meet more often closer to the completion of stage two. During this preliminary planning process we included our principal and assisting teachers on meet times as to involve them as much as possible. In our meetings problems addressed by our advisors helped the team immensely with our computer animated design phase. Our first major meeting began seated around a white board, each member armed with a whiteboard marker. The team leader asked our crew to list our current knowledge of the space around Earth and what the ISS experiences in its orbit. Our team then honed in on the knowledge some of us shared and allowed for new knowledge to be gained through research.

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Figure 4 - Our rough sketch of experiment outer casing

Figure 6 - Whiteboard brainstorm (first meeting before EOI)

Figure 5 3D printing components at DIPP's powder 3D printer

From these topics we devised possible experiment ideas; phenomena we would like to investigate that we all didn’t previously know much about.

We unanimously agreed on investigating energy levels of ionised radiation contained within the Van Allen belts. This particular experiment was chosen as other experimental ideas were not viable in terms of mass and cost restrictions along with the inability to link these experiments to any future application of data. From our main experiment idea we created another brainstorm on issues with the experiment that needed to be addressed. Major considerations were sourcing a sensor, deciding on a computing module and structural materials to be used. We then set ourselves balanced loads of additional work to take with us and complete before the next meeting, fast tracking our progress on developing the experiment. Our research led us to Raspberry Pi’s, Timepix, REPTile and other sensory equipment which we gained extensive knowledge on.

After receiving our EOI feedback, our investigation of the experiment’s composition was given more direction when we turned to industry connections. Unfortunately after several weeks of trying, we were unsuccessful in gaining industry links, up until very recently. Our team organised a call with Paul Grosser from Auspace where we discussed the current situation of the experiment then created an action plan to move forward 18 days out from the 20th of September (Stage Two due date). We together scoped designs for parts of the experiment to align with the limitations

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Figure 7 - Stage Two video plan (group suggestions)

Figure 8 - First meeting after EOI

Figure 9 - Development of re-sketching REPTile to experiment with structural design.

of 1 litre volume and 300g mass limit. Currently we are in the design phase of our experiment even before sourcing all our components. This was deemed necessary to move forward with our experiment while connections are being made to source a sensor for the main experiment. By tinkering on Autodesk Inventor, our team members have been able to begin rough design layout for either sensor we chose whether it be Timepix or REPTile. Fortunately, during our research we were able to find schematics and 3-D layouts of both sensors, aiding us to design and plan for either choice. We aim to maximise our space and mass limit by implementing other sensory equipment which may provide data useful to tertiary institutions and certainly assessment pieces for secondary school education. Our recent structure sketches are based on CubeSat designs as when researching we found that CubeSat’s are very similar in volume and mass limit compared with the mission’s limitations. The hope is CubeSat structural development for various applications will be able to provide us with inspiration for the structural construction of our experiment.

Our model prototype hopefully showcased at the IAC along with other experiment components will provide our team with appropriate ground work to test structures and visualise available space for wiring and other necessities. From starting with a white board brainstorm with a group of individuals to finishing with preliminary prototyping of our experimental design structure as a collective team; we have used the essence of the engineering design process to be able to attack Stage 2 and beyond in the prototyping and testing phase of the SA Schools Space Mission.

Demonstration of STEM Learning Across a Range of DisciplinesAs a collective team of Year 11 and 9 students we have moulded our own path through STEM disciplines with little teacher or mentor influence. In our original brainstorm of experimental ideas we gathered around a white board and listed all things we know about space, micro-gravity environments, the ISS and a low Earth orbit. Through this method we as a team narrowed down a viable experiment that catered to each of our team member’s specialised knowledge. Although we made certain that there were aspects of our experiment that would allow members to research topics and ideas they were not previously familiar with, taking a risk to learn and explore new topics in the fields of STEM. As we established Van Allen belts and the ionized radiation contained within them to be the topic of our experiment, members of our team, unfamiliar with the topic pursued their own research. Our team gathered at lunches to discuss what we had learned in the physics discipline about types of radiation. One member in particular used their experience from Year 12 physics to teach other members about radiation, measuring the energies of emitted particles using mass defect and developing the idea on the behaviour of these subatomic particles. Through this learning our team explored how we can apply physics concepts in the Year 12 syllabus to our experiment. Using school-based learning in an unfamiliar context to address a real-world issue really created unprecedented opportunities for our team to consider career options and gaining expertise they never previously sought after.

When designing the structure to our experiment, we unanimously agreed we each would try using Autodesk Inventor Pro to model some basic components. Each member conducted their own research into CubeSat design, and we proceeded with a discussion and white board drawing of some rough designs. Three members of our team are already used to working with the Inventor program, and with their prior knowledge other team members were able to learn from their peers. Currently all members of our team are undertaking technical designs for components in our experiment which will be fully completed for final design processes soon. To fully understand structural engineering, one of our members who completed work experience at the Australian Submarine Corps recalled work they completed in ASC’s structural engineering department. This enabled the member to show his peers certain considerations we must take into account on this particular design and how to best address the forces present in transit, launch and mounting to the ISS and Bartolomeo payload.

In terms of programming a Raspberry Pi to interact with the sensor we will source; we have explored various coding programs introduced to our team by one of our team members who has a passion for computer science and programming. This member taught us basic languages that he has used previously to code Raspberry Pi’s, allowing all of us to visualise how to construct the code around the sensor we use. After gaining Auspace as our industry partner, we devised with them that Python language is best suited to our application as Auspace have used Pi’s

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Figure 11 - Developing design to mount REPTile in CSSWE's CubeSat (Courtesy CSSWE)

coded with Python in their satellites. This STEM discipline isn’t taught with depth in our school and it has really opened the eyes of our team to new career pathways and interests in various fields of computational science.

In the days leading up to the IAC, our team is readily using CAD/CAM to produce various scale models of designs and components to display in our presentation. This is certainly challenging our knowledge of structural soundness and accurate design. Under the advice of Eddie Grzeskowiak, a Defence Industries Pathways Program teacher, we are conducting further research into 3-D printed materials and how they can accurately model our experiment design. At this stage it is very much trial and error to see what is the most viable design, capable of housing all electrical components of our experiment.

Linkages to Industry and Tertiary InstitutionsOn the day of receiving our reviewed EOI, our team set to work contacting all industry and tertiary contacts that we believe had the expertise to help us with our experiment. We began contacting companies and universities we outlined in our EOI, but further discovered other viable industry connections. Our team used Defense SA’s South Australian Space Capability Directory to attempt establishing contacts with any potential industry partners. To no avail it was days before we finally received a response from one company, Toolcraft PTY LTD. We believed they could help us design a structurally viable housing for our experiment. However their response was only to reject us until we had a design ready to be made. The next morning we established a strong connection to Auspace, in particular Paul Grosser. Our team were having a conference call with Paul by the end of the day, discussing our plan of attack heading into the IAC presentation and beyond. Specifically, Paul and Auspace work with communications and location satellite systems and not sensory work, nevertheless Paul’s enthusiasm was phenomenal compared to other attempts of industry contact. We look forward to working with Paul and Auspace in the coming months as we have established a strong partnership and development of code, housing and wiring of our experiment are underway all thanks to Paul’s expertise.

Along with Paul we are attempting to establish a strong connection to NASA and UC Boulder through our contact, Lauren Blum who was the Project Manager of the CSSWE as mentioned in our opening heading. We are also working on the sourcing of a Timepix sensor and discussing their implementation in our experiment if REPTile is deemed impossible to acquire. We hope by contacting Alexey Gustav, the main author of the 2015 paper titled “On the possibility to use semi-conductive hybrid pixel detectors for study of radiation belt of the Earth.”, who will be able to help us develop the possible integration of Timepix in our experiment.

At this current point in time, industry and tertiary contacts are looking promising in providing us with the best possible structure of an experimental engineering team that we could’ve hoped for. We wish to establish as many connections as we can throughout the development of our experiment as more minds working together is better.

Practicality of the Experiment and Usefulness to SocietyThe practicality of our experiment and its use to society appears to be quite high from our point of view. In the event of being shortlisted we will make use of our research and continue further into research, development and industry connections relating to the Timepix and REPTile sensors. The fact that both sensors have been used in a space environment to produce viable data of energised particle monitoring creates a highly probable success in our experiment. We plan to integrate a primary system and a backup system in the event that our main system shuts down during the 2019 experiment run. This maintains the element of practicality as our main focus is keeping the experiment running. The development of our experiment’s prototypes will be a carefully planned process as we have our own construction abilities at Le Fevre High School, along with facilities at Regency TAFE and industry partners. The progression of our own student experiment design allows members of my team to fully explore their capability to devise ideas and changes for a evermore practical student engineering hub. However with our learning together as a team we have proven to produce high quality computer animated manufacturing and manual manufacturing products.

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The Le Fevre High School Space Crew has maintained the idea of a strong connection between the Van Allen Belts and any form our interplanetary exploration. Our experiment is designed to monitor the energy levels of the intense energised protons and electrons in the inner belt. We believe our collected data has the possibility of helping engineers working to design interplanetary spacecraft capable of shielding astronauts from such high energy radiation. This is extremely useful to society for the betterment of space exploration of the final frontier, where new discoveries away from Earth my come to help so many. Another and unfortunately feasible idea is the construction of orbiting colony stations around Earth. With the ever growing global population set to rise to 9 billion by 2050, resources on Earth such as fossil fuels, water and agricultural land will start to diminish or harm Earth’s environment irreversibly. Thus colony stations orbiting Earth could house millions, providing a new avenue of human sociological development. These colonies however, would be orbiting Earth, passing straight through the inner and outer Van Allen Belts. Hence, we believe our data may have a potential impact on the design of these orbiting colonies and how they could combat the ionised particle radiation.

Accessibility and Usefulness of Data to Experimental Hubs and Industry PartnersIn the event that our experiment is shortlisted we have devised ways in which our data will be readily accessible to the public and any Tertiary or Industry institutions. As far as we are aware there will be a data dump every 30 minutes during the year 2019 when the experiments are running. Our team has discussed with Le Fevre High Schools Digital Systems Manager, Joshua Ip, on the plausibility of creating a webpage in Le Fevre’s current website. This webpage will have all data downlinked by the experiment over the course of 2019. We hope to work with our principal and Mr Ip to design an exciting and interactive webpage for students and adult readers. To publicise the webpage, a quick link will be displayed on our digital billboard at Le Fevre, along with other marketing techniques such as posters and social media. Using this method our team will be able to reach more of the public and get them excited about space exploration, especially with South Australia becoming a hub of the Australian space industry.

The team has also been in discussion with the Le Fevre High School Maths/Science faculty to develop assignments for students in Year 8 to 12 by using the data that is collected as of 2019. Our data has promising interest to influence our peers positively, showing them how school learning can be applied in a real world practical setting. As year 10’s study astrophysical concepts in their syllabus, this data could be quite useful for the teacher to engage their students in data analysis without realising they are developing complex graphing and statistical analysis in preparation for Year 11 math methods work. Also, the year 11 and 12 SACE physics syllabus includes a folio task in which data must be used to make predictions in the context of a topic explored in the syllabus. Our data will readily be made available for students to utilise in their research for the task on radioactivity and the structure of the nucleus. The data we collect will also be offered to various universities in Adelaide as needed for research, such as the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing. We confident the data we gather will provide new platforms for students to learn from and potentially be led into the space industry through their high school work.

Costings and BudgetThroughout the engineering design process our team has kept in mind the budget that the Advanced Technology Project will give the 6 shortlisted experiments. Thus during any selection of components we are trying our best to obtain the cheapest yet most effective equipment with the given prototype budget of $1500 and professional experiment budget of $2000. As we are yet to determine which sensor we will use only a rough estimate of cost for components we wish to implement can be created at this time. We will explore different arrangements that our experiment could take the form of, henceforth the lack of data in the table below.

Possible Experiment Components*

Component Price WeightRaspberry Pi 3 Model B 67.95 42

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Raspberry Pi Zero 7.45 1516GB Swissbit microSDHC (Operating System Storage)

30-80 N/A

No IR Camera 41.29 3Normal Camera 40.47 3SparkFun 9DoF IMU Breakout 24.95US N/ASparkFun Temperature Sensor 41.95US N/ASparkFun Altitude/Pressure Sensor

14.95US N/A

SparkFun Geiger Counter 149.95US N/AGPS Receiver N/A N/AREPTile Sensor Not determined 1270 (Looking to Reduce)Timepix Sensor Not Determined Not Determined6061 or 6063 Aluminium Alloy Design Dependant Design DependantPolymethyl Methacrylate (Acrylic) or RXF1

Design Dependant Design Dependant

Wires, Cable etc, Design Dependant Design Dependant

*All of these components are being considered and are not a reflection of our profession prototyping if we pass Stage 2. This is a dynamic list, meaning it can change at any given time (review needed)

Closing StatementWe would like to take this opportunity to thank DECD and Neumann Space for this once in a life time opportunity to explore outside the confines of tradition education. We believe our experiment will lead to many career openings not just for us, but the future students enrolled at Le Fevre and surrounding area schools. One day our team hopes to come back to Le Fevre and look back on this experience as one that touched our lives and will hopefully touch the lives of the students of tomorrow. Even if our experiment is not shortlisted our team will still explore and develop further in the confidence our work may be continued by succeeding students or possibly utilised in other payloads.

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