UH Community College students prepare to launch payload from NASA flight facility

University of Hawaiʻi
Contact:
Will Smith, (808) 561-3692
Project Imua Mentor, Honolulu Community College
Kelli Abe Trifonovitch, (808) 228-8108
Director of Communications and Outreach, University of Hawai‘i System
Posted: Nov 30, -0001

UH Community College students Nick Herrmann and Cale Mechler are at NASA Wallops Flight Facility.
UH Community College students Nick Herrmann and Cale Mechler are at NASA Wallops Flight Facility.

Link to file video and sound (details below):  http://bit.ly/2hLOg6B

Who:  University of Hawai‘i Community College students from four campuses (Honolulu, Kapi‘olani, Kaua‘i and Windward). Project Imua Mentor Will Smith (Honolulu CC) and students Nick Herrmann (Kaua‘i CC) and Cale Mechler (Windward CC) are at NASA preparing for the launch.

What:  Launch of Project Imua’s third student designed and built scientific payload from a NASA facility.

Why:  Project Imua’s primary mission is to engage undergraduate students in project based STEM research with real-world development of small payloads for space flight.

When:  The launch window is between 5:30 and 9:30 a.m. EDT (11:30 p.m. August 11 to 3:30 a.m. HST) on Saturday, August 12

Where:  NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia

Watch live:  Live coverage of the mission is scheduled to begin at 5 a.m. EDT on the Wallops Ustream site. Launch updates also are available via the Wallops Facebook and Twitter sites. Facebook Live coverage begins at 5:15 a.m. EDT.

Other facts:

  • Project Imua’s first payload was launched on a NASA sounding rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in the summer of 2015.

  • Its second payload named PrIME (Project Imua Multiple Experiment), consisted of a neutron-gamma ray detector and an innovatively powered rocket that was deployed at a height of 96 miles. Nicknamed ScubeR (for Super Simple Sublimation Rocket) for its motor’s simplicity in the use of a mothball-like naphthalene propellant that transformed from solid to vapor. Although the sounding rocket’s sub-orbital flight on August 17, 2016 was successful, NASA search planes were unable to find and recover the payload containing the UH experiments. The payload was declared lost at sea in the Atlantic.

  • Project Imua’s third payload is called PrIMEAT (pronounced primate) for Project Imua Multiple Experiment Attempt Two. This payload consists of many of the subsystems from the lost 2016 flight. On board are improved versions of ScubeR, which includes a heating coil for added thrust, an infrared laser rangefinder, a lookback camera for photographing the payload from space, video and still cameras for monitoring ScubeR and several motion tracking devices.

FILE VIDEO: (TRT:  1:47)

File video of Project Imua preparations prior to the second launch in 2016

1 shot: Windward CC exterior. Hale ‘Imiloa

4 shots: preparing for launch sequence

6 shots: launch sequence begins

1 shot: ScubeR is ejected

1 shot: ScubeR sitting on desk

File video of Project Imua’s first launch at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in 2015

2 shots

SOUND (from 2016):

Cale Mechler, Windward CC student (who is currently at NASA for the 2017 launch) (:10):

“This has been an awesome experience.  Being able to do the same things that any company that wants to fire a rocket with NASA goes through.  We went through all the same stages.”          

For more images of Project Imua 2017, see the Flickr album.

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