Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System: system integration and training

The Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS) is a low cost, re-entry vehicle under development by undergraduate students through senior design projects at the University of Kentucky. KRUPS aims at advancing aerothermodynamic physics while serving as a universal payload system for upper atmospheric and microgravity experiments. The design of KRUPS has been continued for 4 years, starting from conceptual design to baseline qualication. Over the coming year, KRUPS will undergo several critical system validations by being tested in rocket ights. This proposal is two folds. First, it aims at funding a senior design project that would directly benet the greater mission of KRUPS. The students will be tasked on designing a biological testing apparatus that could be readily integrated into KRUPS design. The students will closely work with a professor (and students) in the College of Medicine to understand the general and specic needs of such a test-bed. The second part of the proposal aims at providing the students with hands-on rocket payload development by having them attend the RockOn! workshop at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, in Summer 2017.