FLC – NE Meeting Update on March Meeting W. Point – new addition to the N.E. – Emphasis on TT relevant issues Licensing, Partnering, CRADAS, Fall Meeting. West Point – Thayer Hotel Good location – Same for Fall meeting. Sept 20 – 22. Topics???

FLC – NE Meeting Continued activity with State and Local Government. – NJ Homeland Security Technology Committee, – NJ Domestic Security Planning and Preparedness Group, Lew Meixler and Tom Brown gave a talk on the FLC at the PRC Consulate (April 12) and invited to speak to the NJ Economic Development Authority (May 6)

FLC – NE STEM Project CUBESAT CLUB

CubeSat Club A CubeSat is a miniature spacecraft with a volume of 1 liter and has a mass no greater than 1 kg. CubeSats provide an opportunity for students to learn about satellites and engineering. To date CubeSat programs have resided in the universities. This program's goal is to allow junior high and high school students to work on a CubeSat project. The program is supported by the NSF to promote STEM. These are the ages when children make career decisions and this project may help students decide to pursue careers in technical fields. CubeSat design reviews will be conducted by the students and open to the public. This will help make the project a community project and give the students an opportunity to show their work to their friends and families.

The goal of the club is to design and build a CubeSat with a scientific payload that will fly within 3 years. The club will be supported by scientists and engineers from Princeton Satellite Systems, Princeton University, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and retirees from GE Astro Space. The club will look for a 3 year commitment from students although juniors and seniors at the high school will be welcome.

The club will run through the full year and include summer activities. The first year will be spent familiarizing the students with spacecraft design. This will include lectures by spacecraft engineers and hands-on work with design tools. The second year will involve the manufacturing of the CubeSat. The third year will involve CubeSat testing and launch. THE FLC – NE is supporting the club by providing the software. L. Meixler plans to be an active participant in the club.

Each club meeting will last 60 minutes. The first few lectures will give students the background they need in spacecraft design, analysis and dynamics. Lectures will be given by experienced engineers for each subsystem. The students will begin to familiarize themselves with the design tools starting with the first meeting. Each meeting will focus on giving students hands-on experience with engineering. This club would serve as a model to other schools that want to establish engineering clubs to build any kind of complex system. The same concept could be applied to solar power systems, electric vehicles, wind turbines and many other systems.

Photos from the first CubeSat Club meeting. The students learned about the spacecraft subsystems and are trying to decide which interests them the most! Eloisa de Castro [ Mechanical Engineer, PSS) led the meeting and was helped by Lew Meixler (PPPL & FLC) and David Hoerl ( Electrical Engineer, PSS).