#TECHNOLOGY

[nasa]

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCube’s gamma-ray detecting instrument in the Small Satellite Lab at Goddard.

BurstCube is a type of spacecraft called a CubeSat. These tiny missions give early career engineers and scientists the chance to learn about mission development — as well as do cool science!

Then, after assembling the spacecraft, the BurstCube team took it on the road to conduct a bunch of tests to determine how it will operate in space. Here you can see another early career engineer, Kate Gasaway, working on BurstCube at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCube’s magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when it’s in space.

The next stop was back at Goddard, where the team put BurstCube in a vacuum chamber. You can see engineers Franklin Robinson, Elliot Schwartz, and Colton Cohill lowering the lid here. They changed the temperature inside so it was very hot and then very cold. This mimics the conditions BurstCube will experience in space as it orbits in and out of sunlight.

Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team — including early career engineer Justin Clavette — tested BurstCube’s GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once it’s in orbit.

The next big step in BurstCube’s journey was a flight to Houston! The team packed it up in a special case and took it to the airport. Of course, BurstCube got the window seat!

Once in Texas, the BurstCube team joined their partners at Nanoracks (part of Voyager Space) to get their tiny spacecraft ready for launch. They loaded the satellite into a rectangular frame called a deployer, along with another small satellite called SNoOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation). The deployer is used to push spacecraft into orbit from the International Space Station.

From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply servicing mission on March 21, 2024. BurstCube traveled to the station along with some other small satellites, science experiments, as well as a supply of fresh fruit and coffee for the astronauts.

A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!

And finally, on April 18, 2024, BurstCube was released into orbit. The team will spend a month getting the satellite ready to search the skies for gamma-ray bursts. Then finally, after a long journey, this tiny satellite can embark on its big mission!

BurstCube wouldn’t be the spacecraft it is today without the input of many early career engineers and scientists. Are you interested in learning more about how you can participate in a mission like this one? There are opportunities for students in middle and high school as well as college!

Keep up on BurstCube’s journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[warakami-vaporwave]

Windows2003

[thisisrealy2kok]

Olympus Stylus Verve (2004)

[vintage-tech]

Philco 40-180 seven-tube AM radio from 1940, being sold for parts but I'm sure someone could figure out which vacuum tube to change to get it back into gear.

[lizardsfromspace]

Shopping for a tech thing you aren't a technophile for with someone who is a technophile for it is exhausting. "Would you mind one with inferior blast processing?" They ask, as you go "uh, maybe, is that good?" "Well, it's good if it doesn't have the right hyperion refresh sensors, which, let me tell you, the 2022 Ultra52 did not," and they laugh, and the guy selling it laughs, and you're just going "please...the good one, please,"

[mindblowingscience]

By modifying a refrigerator commonly used in both research and industry, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have drastically reduced the time and energy required to cool materials to within a few degrees above absolute zero. The scientists say that their prototype device, which they are now working to commercialize with an industrial partner, could annually save an estimated 27 million watts of power, $30 million in global electricity consumption, and enough cooling water to fill 5,000 Olympic swimming pools.

Continue Reading.

[yodaprod]

HeathKit GR-2001 Color TV (1976)

[000100010001000]

Sun Yuan & Peng Yu: Can't Help Myself (2016)

[reality-detective]

It's mindbending to consider the amount of time and effort that goes into something as elaborate as this.

A testament of human engineering and creativity, digital or otherwise. 🤔

[fruitiermetrostation]

Nokia Twist Concept (2011)

[thisisrealy2kok]

2000 - Axia Vortex MD74 Cyan

[53v3nfrn5]

[wronghands1]

[gottastim]

strawberryjam1986 on ig