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Nucleus

This is the documentation homepage for Nucleus, Mission 1 of the Brickworks Project.

The documentation here logs our ideas, designs, and decisions through the design process from concept selection to post-flight analysis.

Want to help?

For more information on how to contribute to Nucleus or join the Brickworks team, see the Contribute page.

What is Brickworks?

Brickworks is a group of engineers who are passionate about aerospace. The group formed in November 2018 as an outlet for alumni members of the student-faculty research group RIT Space Exploration (SPEX) to continue doing space-related engineering projects.

Brickworks's mission is to do novel things with accesible hardware, share the knowledge gained along the way, and set an example of excellence for similar hobby projects.

Why a High Altitude Balloon?

High Altitude Balloons (HABs) are low-cost, low-risk vehicles that are the perfect platform for conducting small scale atmospheric studies, remote sensing, and other experiments that make use of the "edge of space" conditions found at altitudes in excess of 65,000 feet above sea level. Atmospheric conditions in the stratosphere are fairly well understood insofar as the humidity, temperatures, and pressures that must be weathered by a flight platform. More specifically, ambient temperatures and pressures between 65,000--100,000, feet altitude see extremes of -60C and 0.05 atm respectively.

HABs are an excellent platform to experiment with and learn aerospace engineering skills and techniques as a hobbyist without the prohibitively high capital requirements of building a spacecraft. This means engineers can also experiment with more novel ideas or gain experience on a risk-tolerant and short-turnaround project.

What is Nucleus?

Nucleus is a high altitude balloon technology demonstration mission. The key objectives of this mission are to develop a robust avionics architecture, experiment with core technologies which enable long duration flights, broadcast telemetry to a remote ground terminal, and optionally collect high quality images from high altitudes. As a technology demonstrator, Nucleus flight systems are designed with the intent to be improved or expanded upon in future missions.