On a sunny day in late June, a payload constructed by Cal Poly college students took a historic trip on Daybreak Aerospace’s Aurora spaceplane. The flight from Tāwhaki Nationwide Aerospace Centre close to Christchurch, New Zealand, carried the corporate’s first U.S. student-built experiment to an altitude of 37,000 ft and speeds of Mach 0.79.
“This mission is placing student-built {hardware} on the entrance traces of aerospace innovation,” stated Kurt Colvin, retired professor and payload advisor. “Working with a next-gen spaceplane like Aurora gave our crew firsthand expertise integrating a payload for a reusable industrial spaceplane — a paradigm shift from conventional expendable rocket launches.”
College students designed the payload to check whether or not an off-the-shelf information acquisition system may stand up to the trials of high-altitude, spaceflight-like environments with related efficiency to a customized system. Colvin tapped George Harrison (Aerospace Engineering ’25) to steer the venture engineering after seeing his work on a navigation system in AERO 568: Aerospace Analysis and Growth. Sam Ricafrente (Statistics ’24, M.S. Enterprise Analytics ’25) and Bella McCarty (Statistics ’24, M.S. Enterprise Analytics ’25) introduced information evaluation experience to the crew.
Harrison started engaged on the payload within the fall of 2024 with flight monitoring {hardware} from Bolder Flight Techniques that might collect metrics to reconstruct the flight path. He spent months configuring the {hardware} to tolerate flight situations and match the spaceplane’s payload bay. The crew additionally gained expertise speaking with engineers at Daybreak Aerospace by means of growth and the ultimate handoff of the payload in March of 2025.
“With the ability to design and have possession in your design is admittedly cool,” stated Harrison, who now works as an engineering integration contractor with the U.S. Air Power. “After which to see it go on an area aircraft and know that the factor that you simply designed is 37,000 ft up within the sky is simply unbelievable. There’s nothing that might beat that feeling.”
A press launch from Daybreak Aerospace additionally famous that the mission laid the groundwork for future Cal Poly launches from the upcoming Paso Robles Area Innovation and Know-how Park.
“Flying on Aurora is of great strategic significance,” stated Colvin. “It’s hands-on entry to the way forward for industrial spaceflight.”
A spaceplane’s horizontal launch structure — taking off and touchdown like a standard plane — has the potential to make launches less expensive by shortly reusing gear from mission to mission.
“Aurora is the right instrument for college students to not solely be taught the theories of aerospace, but in addition design, construct, qualify, and function in the actual world,” stated James Powell, Daybreak Aerospace’s chief spaceplane engineer and co-founder. “As a result of we get well the payload, prospects achieve deeper perception into efficiency and might extra simply modify and improve for future flights.”
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