Poster Presentation

Advancement of University of Houston Undergraduate Student Instrumentation Program

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Abstract

At the University of Houston, our student-led research program Undergraduate Student Instrumentation Program (USIP) focuses on a variety of atmospheric experiments in a two-year wave cycle. The sixth iteration of this program (USIP VI) concludes with an expedition to the state of Alaska in March 2025, conducting the experiments developed by the student teams. The program’s objectives are twofold: to explore possible revisions or continuation of existing projects, and to research new ideas that may be further developed into experiments. These experiments range from single or multiple ground-based sensor stations to stratospheric ballooning payloads designed to survive harsh conditions at high altitudes. Sensor data is both recorded locally for manual retrieval and streamed using a variety of telemetry equipment to ensure the collection of desired data to be processed and analyzed. For balloon-based experiments often utilizing a balloon payload stack configuration, where multiple experiments are flown using one balloon, GPS tracking is used for the retrieval of the payload with primary to tertiary trackers attached for a larger chance of retrieval. 

The USIP VI 2023-2025 campaign to Alaska revolves around a large suite of research projects under constant research, development and testing in preparation for the expedition. Examples of such projects are studies of atmospheric conditions including measurements of the ionosphere content and propagation of radio waves at very low frequencies (VLF) and high frequencies (HF), cosmogenic particle detection and characterization (HEP), and spectroscopic studies of the aurora borealis during times of high solar activity. These ground based and balloon born experiments will be deployed during the three-week expedition to Alaska in March 2025.

How to Cite:

Jochims-Torres, R., Bering, E., Renshaw, A., Ruszkowski, J., Bastidas, M., Myren, K., Kelley, C., Engineer, Z., Meziou, M. & Gan, S., (2024) “Advancement of University of Houston Undergraduate Student Instrumentation Program ”, Academic High Altitude Conference 2024(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ahac.17963