Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Laboratory

The Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Laboratory (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, if so desired. SAIL has approximately 3,000 square feet of space, separated into two rooms of about 1,500 sq. ft. each.

The first 1,500-sq. ft. space houses the two plasma chambers as well as plenty of desk space and computer stations for students pursuing experimental or plasma modeling work.

The second 1,500-sq. ft. space houses the electronics and other hardware development area, along with student space with workstations to do the design and computational analysis of rocket/satellite flight data, as well as a conference table setup with a projector and camera for internet-based 180 C for objects up to 6U CubeSat in size. The chamber is used for meticulous, temperature-based calibration of instruments as well as thermal bakeout of flight instruments.

All flight hardware development is done in an ESD safe zone that is about 300 sq. ft. in size. The area has two comprehensively equipped electronics workbenches for doing surface-mount assembly and testing of printed circuit boards.

SAIL also has a 2m diameter large Helmholtz cage and a 45 cm diameter small Helmholtz cage, along with a foot-long Zero Gauss Chamber for calibration of magnetometers as well as actuation and testing of the magnetic attitude determination and control system of CubeSats up to 6U in size.

There is a mechanical hardware building capability with various tools (metal lathe, drill press, milling machine, etc.) and multiple hardtop benches for assembly of rocket flight hardware conferences.

SAIL has a computer-controlled environmental chamber capable of thermal cycling from -70 C to +175 C.

The lab also has the following items not pictured here:

• A 1m cubed Halogen+LED based solar chamber for hands-off power characterization of upto 6U CubeSats.
• A spin table capable of testing rocket boom deployment on sounding rockets up to 5 Hz spin rate.
• A 2m cubed dark chamber for optical characterization of CubeSats to aid in post-flight space situational awareness observations from the ground.