Pueblo -- Undergraduate student teams from 11 colleges and universities in Colorado, including three industrial engineering students from Colorado State University - Pueblo, will launch high-altitude balloon experiments Aug. 1 from Deer Trail, Colorado, testing new concepts and technologies that could be used on future space flight missions. The experiments range from scientific instruments that could be used to measure weather conditions in a Mars-like environment to prototype devices that, upon landing, would deploy and operate a planetary rover.

More than 100 students have been involved in developing the experiments since the "DemoSat" project was funded through a $100,000 grant from NASA in December 2002. The project is an expansion of the successful "BalloonSat" program developed by Chris Koehler, deputy director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium headquartered at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Student teams from throughout Colorado will demonstrate their payloads at the final Launch Readiness Review set for Friday, Aug. 1, from 1 to 6 p.m. in the Discovery Learning Center, located on the southwest corner of Colorado Avenue and Regent Drive in Boulder. The review is not open to the public, but reporters and photographers are welcome to attend.

CSU-Pueblo students Veronica Garcia, Francisco Moran, and Shayne Castro, along with faculty advisor Wolfgang Sauer, associate professor and chair of mechanical engineering technology, have designed and built a balloon payload of about 2.7 pounds that contains four cameras, which take pictures every four minutes and thirty seconds during the balloon flight. According to Sauer, the ascent to 100,000 feet should take about 90 minutes depending on wind conditions, with the descent with a parachute taking about the same amount of time.

"Our high-altitude balloon programs give students hands-on experience in designing, building, flying, operating, and analyzing real space engineering and science experiments," said Koehler. "It's really a great experience for freshmen and sophomore industrial engineering students and enables them to see the wide range of paths their future careers could take."

In the DemoSat program, students have worked with NASA scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Lab and Ames Research Center, as well as faculty from their own institutions to develop the ideas and prototypes.

The experiments, which will be launched on two balloons, will reach an altitude of about 100,000 feet before the balloons burst and the experiments plummet back to earth. Students will track and retrieve their devices using radio communications and GPS data for later analysis.

"The balloon experiment offers a quick and inexpensive way to test the image ranking algorithms and communications technologies. We'll get the data back in just two to three hours," said project manager Kevin McWilliams, a senior in aerospace engineering sciences.

The students also must tackle a number of other engineering challenges to have a successful experiment, including protecting their payload from temperatures nearing -100 degrees Fahrenheit, pressure close to vacuum and descent speeds exceeding Mach 1.

For more information on the CSU-Pueblo experiment, contact Wolfgang Sauer at 485-3760 or 549-2884.

Colorado State University - Pueblo is a regional, comprehensive university emphasizing professional, career-oriented, and applied programs. Displaying excellence in teaching, celebrating diversity, and engaging in service and outreach, CSU-Pueblo is distinguished by access, opportunity, and the overall quality of services provided to its students.