On March 17, 1852, an M-type asteroid was discovered and named ‘Psyche’, and in August 2022 NASA is set to launch a spacecraft to orbit around the asteroid and collect data to find out if this metallic object was the core to a proto-planet. Team KAIKANA (Victor Escarate-Cruz, Robert Smith, Shaun Caldwell, Jonathan Hawkins) has been tasked to develop a power source for future missions to land on the asteroid and collect data that will enable us to learn its origin.
The purpose of our design is to simulate the power source and components necessary to maintain that power as well as collect some information about Psyche and with our budget of a few hundred dollars we were able to build some of the components necessary to show the workings of our design. There have been many discoveries that stem from NASA and other space agencies that have been incorporated into civilian life so we believe our lander will also be important in finding new data from an asteroid with similar core characteristics to earth’s core.
Our project design is also conveniently named after our team, Kaikana, and has taken many turns after evaluating and reevaluating data in order to meet some specifications we set for ourselves in the beginning. Our original design started with a hydrogen fuel cell that generated power to charge a 12V battery and sent that power to a converter which stepped down the voltage to the needed 5V and 3.3V. After modeling a fuel cell in simulink we realized the amount of oxygen and hydrogen needed to charge a battery for the given time would not only weigh too much but the majority of electricity produced would go back into running the fuel cell, which was unnecessary and very inefficient.
After scrapping our fuel cell design, we decided we could run all our electronics off a single charge battery and still have an operating time around 100 hours which gives around 10 ‘Psyche days’ of information. Our final design starts with an agm 12V battery and runs to a power converter. The converter supplies 2 Arduino Due’s, a temperature sensor, distance sensor, gauss meter, wifi module, and a polyimide heater. We will measure the surface temperature of Psyche as well as the temperature of our system, using a heater to maintain our equipment. One Due analyzes sensor information and sends an analog signal out. The second Due measures system temperature and controls the heater as well as reads the data from the first Due and sends all the information out through a wifi module, so we may read it remotely.
1. 3-D Model of our Lander
2. Wiring for our Power Converter
3. Wiring of our Sensor and Arduino
4. Arduino Due analyzing and sending information in series with a 2nd Due
5. Combined Project Assembly for Internal Controls in Refrigerated Environmental Testing
6. Arduino Due analyzing and sending information in series with a 2nd Due
7. Refrigerated Environmental Testing
Poster
Videos
Final Report
Click above to jump to our final report for our Power Solution.
This work was created in partial fulfillment of ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY Capstone Course “EEE 489″. The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (https://psyche.asu.edu). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.