During week one of the summer payload internship, there have been a number of things accomplished between the team. We have decided the phenomena we want to investigate. We have broken up into three sub-teams and have decided to do an experiment involving static charge and electric discharge, an experiment on detecting radiation and UV rays in the atmosphere, and an experiment on detecting mercury and the amount of ozone at different altitudes.
An experiment for electric discharge has been designed as to simulate electric discharge by seeing at what potentials a spark will complete a high voltage, low current circuit. We want to prove that as temperature and pressure go down the circuit will be able to be completed at a lower voltage. For the setup of this experiment, twelve volts will be going through the circuit. It will then go through a DC/AC inverter which will allow the energy to convert from DC power to AC. This inverter does have a transformer which steps up the voltage some but it will not step up high enough. That is why another transformer will be added to step up the voltage more for the current to spark while keeping the amplitude down. We want to change the amount of distance between the electrodes which will be in the form of a sphere. In terms of the static charge experiment, we want to determine if not quantitatively, qualitatively the amount of static charge is obtained in the atmosphere on an object. This will be found by using a sensor that can detect static charge on an object. This part of the experiment has the ability to be put on the outside of the payload so it will be directly involved with the atmosphere. A basic stamp circuit will need to be used to collect the readings as the payload increases in altitude.
The radiation experiment has been investigated and the team wants to detect the cosmic or background radiation within the atmosphere. We want to investigate the hypothesis that the counts per minute will double every 6,000 ft until 60,000 ft. After 60,000 ft it should maintain the number of counts per minutes or decrease. An RM60 radiation detector will be used to detect the radiation. The signal will need to be converted by a phone jack and basic stamp. When the voltage drops that is when the cosmic ray is detected. The UV radiation is detected by photo diodes to detect UVA, B, or C radiation. We want to have two photo diodes facing opposite directions to detect reflected radiation.
The final experiment includes testing the atmospheric ozone content using a sensor that will have the gases pass through it. To test for mercury levels, a gold trap is used that contains small gold-coated glass beads, which amalgamates mercury out of the air. The samples will be taken at different altitudes to compare pollution levels throughout the atmosphere. We are still figuring out how to make a light weight device to have several tubes collect the mercury data and it will need to stay uncontaminated throughout the entire flight. The current thought is to have a fan-valve system, to control the amount of airflow drawn through each trap.
These are the latest updates and the team is getting along really well and the weekend away was a great experience to start the team building.
Thanks, Victoria
