Dr. Jim Fischer of the Mathematics Department at Oregon Institute of Technology was awarded a $2,500 grant through the Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium in support of OIT’s LaunchOIT High Altitude Balloon Program. Fischer is the Principal Investigator of a project involving a Software Engineering Technology Junior Project team that is developing a system to dynamically predict the path of a high-altitude Balloon Satellite while in flight using data modeling. In the past, OIT has used radiotransmitter signals to relay some information to the ground using periodic GPS and looks forward to using an integrated GPS and data modeling system in the future.

“The system will use this quasi real-time data to adaptively predict the flight path using custom numerical models developed by the team,” Fischer said. The project team will be presenting their progress at the 2010 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Zone IV Regional Conference at the end of March.

Dr. Lawrence Powers, Dean of the school of Health, Arts and Sciences secured a $2,500 grant through the Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium also in support of OIT’s LaunchOIT High Altitude Balloon Program. Powers is the Principal Investigator of a project that involves a team of Electrical Engineering senior project and Biology class project students. This project will perform sampling for high altitude microbes utilizing an altitude-triggered sampling system – a first for OIT. This multidisciplinary project hopes to sample and develop cultures of microbes from altitudes that have not been studied much before.

The remaining $2,500 will support the student chapter of the Launch OIT program. A balloon launch will take place late spring term.

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