Aerospace Engineering Sciences

Aerospace Students Work on Projects from the Ocean's Surface to the Outer Planets

Graduate student Johanne Healde adjusts a deployable imaging device in the Engineering Center's Structural Dynamics and Control Laboratory.

The department's Aerospace Curriculum 2000 has been hailed by industry leaders as a forerunner of future engineering education. Students who were sophomores in 1998, when the curriculum reform was first implemented at that grade level, graduated in May 2000 and found themselves hot items in the job market which was looking for graduates who have worked in teams, made presentations, and gained hands-on experience with design-build-test problems.

Students demonstrate those skills as they work with the Aerosonde, a small robotic aircraft weighing 30 pounds with a wing span of 9 feet. An award from the Department of Defense allowed AES to purchase three Aerosondes and a ground control station. Another major award permits use of the Aerosonde to obtain environmental observations over the Arctic Ocean, motivating aerospace students to take on senior design projects such as developing an anti-icing method for the Aerosonde, a catapult launch system, and a small engine dynamometer.

In the Structural Dynamics and Control Laboratory, students and faculty work closely with NASA and industrial collaborators to immediately turn research results into spacecraft designs, including engineering future large space telescopes. With 100 to 1,000 times the resolving power of the Hubble, such telescopes will image distant Earth-like planets and search them for signs of life. Current research activities focus on the problems of deploying and precisely controlling the large structures that will hold the telescope pieces in place. More

Undergraduate Students Design and Build Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Students, from left to right, Eric Cain, John Purvis, Jarvis Songer, and Michael Bertman work on the aircraft in the ITL Laboratory.

Three years ago, CU-Boulder student John Purvis had a goal to design and build his own aircraft — and actually fly it — while an undergraduate in Aerospace Engineering Sciences. This spring, he and several other students are reaching that goal and beyond with a small, remotely piloted aircraft they built under the sponsorship of General Dynamics.

A testbed project for a next-generation, full-size Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, the aircraft has a 7-foot wingspan, in-flight electronics incorporating GPS, weather and engine status data, and two onboard cameras to aid the pilot in controlling the vehicle. The aircraft, which will undergo flight testing in May, has a canard design with a box-wing configuration, weighs 75 to 100 pounds, and has a cruising speed of about 50 miles per hour.

Purvis and his group have impressed aerospace engineering faculty along with Dr. Terry Higbee, Chief Scientist at General Dynamics Electronic Systems, with their drive and professionalism. General Dynamics, which is interested in the potential of the vehicle as a communications or reconnaissance vehicle, sponsored the project with upwards of $50,000. More