Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Laboratory

The Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab (SAIL) is part of the Center for Space and Atmospheric Research (CSAR) and is located within the Physical Sciences Department of Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus. SAIL is card-access controlled where export controlled (ITAR) and restricted research and development can be conducted. SAIL has 1,700 square feet of space, separated in two rooms of 900 square feet and 800 square feet.

The 800-square-feet lab space houses two plasma chambers. The larger cylindrical chamber is 2 meters long and 1 meter in diameter with a base pressure of 10e-7 torr. It can generate a maximum plasma density of 10e9/cm3 and maximum electron temperature of 5 eV. For now the chamber is used for characterization of plasma diagnostic instruments that are flown on rockets and satellites. The chamber primarily uses argon as the ionizing species, but is capable of doing two gas species at a time. It has SAIL built and calibrated Langmuir probes for plasma characterization, a Residual Gas Analyzer, various thermocouples, and various other instruments in developmental stages.

A smaller all-pyrex glass chamber 18 inches in height and 12 inches in width is used for doing dusty plasma experiments as well as outgassing testing for new materials. This smaller plasma chamber uses a glow discharge plasma source and gives a 360-degree view of experimental volume. Its base pressure is 2e-5 torr.

The room also has an environmental chamber capable of thermal cycling -70 C to +180 C objects up to 6U CubeSat in size. The chamber is used for calibration of instruments as well as thermal bakeout of flight instruments.

The larger 900 sq ft lab space is divided into three sections. One section has an ESD safe zone with two comprehensively equipped electronics workbenches for doing surface-mount assembly and testing of printed circuit boards. The second section has mechanical hardware building capability with various tools, hardtop benches for assembly, a spin table, etc. And finally, a third section has 5 desks and workstations for students, as well as a conference table setup with a projector and camera for internet based conferences.

• Space Plasma Chamber and accessories
• Helmholtz coils and accessories
• Test Equity environmental Chamber
• Tektronix oscilloscopes
• Keithely power supplies
• Keithely source meter
• Electronics work bench with soldering accessories
• Celestron 11” RASA  and accessories such as cameras and lenses