What is ARLISS?
ARLISS began as a cooperative program between Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford, his colleagues at other universities worldwide and members of AeroPac led by Pius Morizumi and Tom Rouse. The first ARLISS event was held in 1999.
Goals. The goals of the program are to provide a learning experience - both for advanced high school and college level students and for AeroPac members (fliers) as well.
For the students - they learn the complete collaborative design process to design a complex electronic and computer payload (a satellite) that will have to operate in a standard, but harsh environment. For the fliers, they learn to hone their skills of designing highly reliable and repeatable flight operations.
Key to the ARLISS program are reliable flight and support operations provided by AeroPac members.
Reliable delivery of standard payloads (CanSat and Open) to a reasonably consistent altitude (11k' AGL Black Rock). The ARLISS team takes extraordinary pride in never having lost a student payload to flight failure. A few payloads have not been successfully deployed, but none lost.
Provide the infrastructure for the event. Airframes built to deliver standard payloads to consistent altitudes. Provide motors for each launch. Provide a launch site and launch operations including FAA, BLM and other regulatory agency management. Provide basic sanitary facilities.
And more recently, AeroPac, at Bob Twiggs' request, has provided a one stop, non-profit financial support for launch fees, flight operations costs, and regulatory fees.
The program has evolved over the years. While initially focused on rather unintelligent (by today's standards) student satellites the size of soft drink can (and launched three at a time - rather like Bob Twigg's CubeSats), the program quickly moved to where the dominant payload is the Open Class of a single coffee can sized payload containing a complex satellite capable of autonomous operation with heavy use of real-time bidirectional radio communications, GPS and autonomous robotic design. The ComeBack competition of the last few years has seen some dramatic technology of remote rovers, fliers and sophisticated communications both in flight and on the ground. A second airframe using K motors has been developed to allow lower cost, more convenient flights of Classic CanSat payloads alongside of M motored Open Class flights.
The program has been overall a dramatic success and the universities involved have consistently asked for two high priority enhancements to the program: more capacity for more flights (particularly M) and Internet access so that more students can remotely participate and the quality of their robotic systems can be improved.
Who Runs ARLISS?
ARLISS is a cooperative activity between students, their high schools and universities, AeroPac, and the fliers that are largely AeroPac members. The creator and inspirational leader is Bob Twiggs and AeroPac manages the event in cooperation with Bob's overall leadership.
With AeroPac's recent incorporation as an educational non-profit, ARLISS is a major component of our non-profit educational mission. While the program has historically been loosely organized based on the enthusiasm in any given year of some core fliers, Bob's (and the participating schools) expressed desire to expand the program both added capacity and with added capability (e.g. Internet access) motivates a bit more structured management.
Beginning with ARLISS 2008, AeroPac's President (Tony Alcocer) supported by the AeroPac Board of Directors has appointed an ARLISS Steering Committee of experienced ARLISS participants to guide the program. For 2008, this Committee consists of Becky Green, Tom Rouse and Ken Biba. They will organize the efforts with the students (through Bob Twiggs) and with the fliers to provide the best possible educational experience both for the students as well as the fliers.
Who Pays for ARLISS?
ARLISS is a volunteer, non-profit program. It is funded from several sources.
The costs of motors, partial repair of ARLISS airframes, regulatory fees and sanitation costs are paid for by the participating universities. AeroPac takes no profit from these fees.
The student payloads and their travel costs are funded by the participating Universities and the students.
ARLISS fliers invest in creating the airframe used for this program. Beginning in 2008 the costs of this airframe may be tax deductible (see your tax advisor) based on AeroPac's (and hence ARLISS) non-profit status.
What is the 2008 Plan for ARLISS?
The 2008 ARLISS Steering Committee has brainstormed about the 2008 program and proposes the following themes for this year.
Improving flight operations.
One the key elements is increasing flight capacity while maintaining reliability and consistent performance. We think that standardizing the carrier and payload prep is a key element of that. We propose a standard ARLISS provided carrier (the classic PML phenolic) that is provided in large quantity and is effectively disposable and permits students to easily and quickly integrate their payloads.
We propose centralizing motor prep, motor cleaning and airframe integration near the student satellite prep area to minimize confusion, maximize mentoring of new fliers and the inevitable scurrying about that old, increasing arthritic folks like Ken, Tom, and Beck. None of the Steering Committee plans to fly this year to focus on the event.
Adding a bit more fun. We propose adding a few colored motors to the mix this year (while maintaining the same price to the students) to add a bit more flair without compromising basic program goals.
Adding more capability. Bob Twiggs (in collaboration with San Jose State University , the California Space Authority, Ken Biba and Paul Hopkins) is developing a Virtual Classroom that will not only bring real-time telemetry, Internet, WiFi and video to the playa .. but deliver a collaborative project tool so that students on the playa can work with their colleagues back home or on the Internet. We expect this to be available for ARLISS 2008 and prototyped by MudRock.
CanSat Projects
The ARLISS CanSat program is designed to provide educational experience to students in the design, integration, flight, and data analysis of a space experiment. This program is to prepare students for an exciting, technical challenge that may lead to launching space experiments into low earth orbits and beyond.
Overview
ARLISS CanSat class of payloads for new and returning students. Rockets will carry the CanSats to 10,000 - 12,000 feet and eject these for descent on parachute for space demonstration experiments.
Requirements
The requirements for the CanSats are:
Size: Must be same size as a standard US soda can (Pespi, CocaCola, 7up, etc). Diameter 2.6000 +/- 0.005 inch
Weight: Weight of the CanSat may not exceed a full can of regular cola ~ 350g.
Length: Must not exceed the length of a standard cola can except for communication antennas.
Outer Shape (before launch): The outer shape and marking must be a cola can. it is encouraged that a real cola can be used as the outer covering. The objective here is that this is a satellite built in a cola can and in the future may lead to sponsorship by a cola distributor.
Outer Shape (after deployment): The CanSat my have deployable antennas, experiments or other devices after it leaves the payload carrier.
Parachute: For a standard descent, a 36-inch diameter may be used. A 6-inch dump hole can be cut into the chute to adjust descent rate and time.
Backup CanSat Experiment
Each group is encouraged to bring at least one extra CanSat experiment to launch in case the primary CanSat is not working at launch time or there is an extra launch opportunity available during the launch days.
CanSats that do not meet the Requirements
CanSats that arrive at the launch site that do not confirm to the requirements outlined above will not be allowed to launch. If there is a desire to build CanSats that can not meet these requirements, consider participating in the Open Class competition that will allow experiments up to 5.770-inches in diameter, 10-inches deep and a weight of up to 4 pounds.
Open Class Flight Experiments
The Open Class Flight Experiments class is to challenge those students that have interests and skills that go beyond the limitations of the CanSat payloads. There students may fly experiments that could demonstrate simulated Mars activities.
List of organizations and individuals supporting the ARLISS project
The Black Rock Desert
Black rock info goes here