CLaSP Project #1: Ground-based Antenna Array Deployment for NASA’s SunRISE Mission
(Note: looking for 2 students for this project)
Faculty Mentor: Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, akhavant@umich.edu
Project Description:
A new mission is emerging: NASA’s Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) project, which will characterize coronal mass ejections, the most violent type of solar weather. The mission is set to launch in 2024. This project will build and operate ground-based radio antenna arrays whose frequency coverage partially overlaps with that of SunRISE. The antenna arrays will enable a myriad of student research, including auroral imaging, tracking low-frequency bursts from lightning, and imaging the brightest galactic sources. The UM team has already deployed and tested an antenna array and has made progress in developing partnerships for citizen science opportunities at high schools around the country. This summer, the objective is to deploy a first 3-element radio interferometer at nearby Peach Mountain and develop software for imaging the data from this and similar commercial radio antenna arrays. The team is seeking two students with extensive experience in software/hardware development, such as utilizing Arduino/Raspberry PI platforms, to automate data acquisition and configure data communication.
Research Mode: In Lab
CLaSP Project #2: Space Weather Sensor Network Development
Faculty Mentor: Mark Moldwin, mmoldwin@umich.edu
Prerequisites: Some programming and data analysis experience.
Project Description:
This project is developing instrumentation to observe space weather storms. Using magnetometers and GPS dual-frequency receivers, geomagnetic and ionospheric disturbances can be measured from the ground. SURE students (EE, ME, CS, Space Instrumentation, Data Science, Physics, Earth Science, or another STEM major) can contribute to the full breadth of development and testing of ground systems to be deployed around the world.
Research Mode: In Lab
CLaSP Project #3: Microwave Remote Sensing of Europa
Faculty Mentor: Cheng Li, chengcli@umich.edu
Prerequisites: Background in EM waves
Project Description:
Europa is one of the moons of Jupiter and is known for its unique ice-coving surface featuring a network of dark, crisscrossing lineaments and a series of reddish-brown patches. The radio Doppler data from the Galileo mission suggested that Europa is differentiated into a metallic core, a rocky mantle (or a mixture of metal and silicate), and a water-ice-liquid shell. Embedded in Jupiter’s inner magnetosphere, Europa causes perturbations to the external magnetic field, indicating the presence of induced magnetic fields generated by Europa’s internal salty ocean in response to the external plasma environment. Additionally, surface images captured by the Voyager and the Galileo missions found that Europa’s surface is less cratered than that of Ganymede or Callisto, indicating a thin ice shell, a warm interior, and more recent resurfacing events. Multiple pieces of evidence suggest that Europa may host a liquid water layer beneath
the frozen surface. Europa Clipper is a NASA mission that will launch in 2024 to search for Europa’s internal ocean. The project is to calculate the expected radar and radiometric signal of Europa at radio frequencies. The project will explore different terrain types to understand the potential complications of radar measurements.
Research Mode: In Lab
SURE Project #4: Background-Oriented Schlieren Tomography
Faculty Mentor: Cheng Li, chengcli@umich.edu
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of optics and computer programming
Project Description:
Atmospheric turbulence has a huge impact on governing the temperature structure of our atmosphere, on the mixing of water vapor, on forming clouds, and on the future climate. However, unlike water, we cannot see the motion of the atmosphere and students do not have a “visual” feeling of the motion of the atmosphere that we live in; they can feel the wind but they cannot see it. The recent development of Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) is a simple and cost-effective imaging method for the visualization of atmospheric turbulence leveraging modern computational capabilities. It only requires one camera and a background “noisy” image. The system “calculates” the bending of the light pathing through the media of interest by comparing the original undistorted image with a distorted image by the density variance in the media. No mirror is needed, and the system is no longer limited by the size of the focal length or the
size of the mirror. The project is to set up a demonstration of BOS in a lab to visualize atmospheric turbulence. Basic knowledge of optics and computer programming is needed for this project.
Research Mode: In Lab