First-Time Undergraduate Research Experience
Sinha and Stonitsch are members of a NASA-funded research team led by Davide Ziviani, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering, working on one of several projects at Purdue associated with the Resilient Extraterrestrial Habitats Institute (RETHi)
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The team is working to build a structure that can be cooled to -50 degrees Celsius in order to simulate the temperature that lunar habitat would experience under a layer of regolith insulation. This will ultimately be a cyber-physical testbed where multiple research groups in RETHi can test habitat systems in a simulated lunar environment, but physically and through simulations.
The initial testing was conducted with a stand-alone cooling panel to determine how many pipe loops would be required to maintain a uniform temperature profile, what material the panel should be made from and the total costs, while addressing any issues during testing, The success of the single-panel testing led to team to start production of a full multi-panel cooling dome during the Summer of 2021.
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These students received financial support for their work from an Indiana Space Grant Consortium grant, given to the Engineering Undergraduate Research Office (EURO), in support first-time undergraduate researchers with a mission of building a diverse workforce in Engineering. A first-time researcher is any student who is brand new to research regardless of their academic standing. EURO had a callout for PIs with research aligned with NASA technical directorates such as Aeronautics Research, Human Exploration Operations, Science, Space Technology.
Selected first-time researchers received a $1000 stipend award to engage in research (3 credit hour worth of time commitment) labs in the 2021 Spring semester. All first-time researcher awardees presented their work at the Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference held every Spring. Stonitsch presentation on “Development and Optimization of a Thermal Transfer System for Simulating Lunar Temperatures and Possible Scenarios” was selected as a top abstract for Innovative Technology/ Entrepreneurship/ Design by the Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies.
EURO will continue to offer first-time researchers financial awards through various grants. New opportunities will be posted at the beginning of the Fall semester on the EURO website's Undergraduate Research Opportunities page.