Utah State University lab to sharpen heavenly view

A new $8 million laboratory at Utah State University not only will sharpen the electronic eyes of satellites but also hone the minds of students.

By Joe Bauman
Deseret News staff writer

The Calibration and Optical Research Laboratory at USU’s Space Dynamics Lab was dedicated recently, after a little more than a year of construction. The 43,000-square-foot building cost $5 million to build, with another $3 million for equipment, networking and observatories.

Because delicate satellite sensors will be calibrated and assembled there, it must be scrupulously clean. How clean is that? Forrest Fackrell, business manager for the Space Dynamics Laboratory, said technicians in the calibration facility will have access to a "Class 100 clean room."

That means every cubic foot of air will have no more than 100 dust particles the size of 0.5 microns or larger. "The normal air that you and I breathe has upward of 400,000 parts per million," he said.

Air this pure requires scientists to wear special suits to keep lint, bits of dried skin and other contaminants from drifting off their bodies.

One of the new calibration laboratory’s most impressive features is a tank 32 feet long and 11 feet wide, which holds liquid nitrogen used to cool a vacuum chamber. The chamber will be able to replicate the cold, airless environment far above Earth, where instruments will be tested.

Engineers and scientists have moved into the building, while some work is continuing with the vacuum chamber’s piping. The chamber won’t be fully utilized until January, but the laboratory space, building, offices and auditorium are in use.
"They do conduct research there, and they perform experiments," he said.

Two laboratories were constructed to facilitate lifting heavy material. "We’ve got two five-ton bridge cranes," he said.

Technicians can back a truck trailer into the building and lift heavy satellite components off its bed.
Allan Steed, director of the Space Dynamics Lab, said in a prepared statement that developing ways to better evaluate and calibrate sensors has been a major effort at SDL for the past 20 years. "SDL has gained national and international prominence in this field," he said.

For many nonscientists, the third-floor observatory may be the most exciting section of the lab. A bright green laser beam will shoot into the night sky. The beam is used in studies of the makeup of the upper atmosphere.
A telescope in the observatory will make an infrared survey of the heavens, looking for unusual changes in stars. A special "all sky camera" will record information about what’s going on above.

Some of the data will be placed on the Web so that those who are interested in the research can study the results, said Space Dynamics Laboratory spokeswoman Trina Paskett.
The observatory also will figure in the SDL outreach program, she said.
"There’ll be opportunities for teachers and others in the community to come up to the observatory and use that," Paskett added.

Local classes will be able to work with the observatory and sometimes even visit to glimpse the stars.

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