Drexel Space Systems Laboratory

About Us


The Drexel Space Systems Laboratory functions within the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics department at Drexel University on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The missions of the lab is three fold:


Provide experience through hands-on and theoretical aerospace projects

Provide excitement through observing completed projects that 'fly'

Provide exposure through presenting their findings in conferences and competitions


The goal of the lab is to first and foremost inspire future generations to advance aerospace technologies.


Detailed on the next three pages is information regarding some of the previous projects that have been worked on through the DSSL along with a list of Drexel faculty, students, and alumni who have been active within the lab.


If you would like to reach out to us, please do so on the Contact Us page.

Projects

The goal of the SpaceX Hyperloop competition is to design and build the best Hyperloop pod for the Hyperloop system which was unveiled back in 2013. The competition is geared towards university students and independent engineering teams. The Drexel Hyperloop team is one of the 30 remaining teams in the competition out of the 1,750+ teams who originally entered.

SpaceX Hyperloop Competition

The Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition is a university level, full mission architecture engineering design competition with the purpose of tackling space-related concepts for future missions. The Drexel RASC-AL team has been accepted into the competition for the 2013, 2014, and 2015 season. This competition is hosted in Cocoa Beach Florida.

NIA RASC-AL Competition

Field Emission Electic Propulsion (FEEP) is a concept first developed at MIT that can be used to propel small objects to far distances through space. This type of propulsion has a large thrust to weight ratio, larger than fighter jets, but due to the size it is currently only able to propel small objects. A FEEP engine was created during the summer of 2015 and futher research will be done to determine its feasibility for being used on CubeSats.

Field Emission Electric Propulsion

The purpose of the High Altitude Balloon (HAB) project is to provide students with some hand on experience in the aerospace field. Students deisgn a payload to attach to the balloon in order to accomplish a set of tasks, and then go on to field test their design.

HAB

The mission of DragonSat-1 was to take pictures of the aurora (northern and southern lights) to observe the radiation dissipation intensity during the solar events, and perform technology demonstration of a boom deployment mechanism in space.

DragonSat 1

The goal of this year's Drexel RockSat was to develop and test a system that will use piezoelectric materials to convert mechanical vibrational energy into electrical energy to trickle charge on-board power systems.

RockSat C

Drexel's Microgravity Team was selected for the Microgravity University Program in 2011. Their experiment was called Solid Particle Dampening Experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to observe how different amounts of fill in the boom tip affected boom dampening.

Microgravity

Senior Design

A transportable, quickly deployable, radio control one-pound model aircraft capable of carrying three times its own weight was designed, built and competed with in the Aero SAE West 2016 competition by a team of five Drexel engineering seniors majoring in mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering. The team placed 3rd in the Drexel Senior Design competition and 8th in the international competition hosted by SAE International.

Aero SAE

The COIL (CubeSat Orbital Integrated Linkage) mechanism consists is a electromagnet, spring, latching, and pulley system. The mechanism attracts another cube with the electromagnet from a distance. After the cubes make contact, the pulley system draws the cubes together and a system of mechanical latches lock the new docked cubes together.

COIL

The LOTUS is designed as a modular system that can be attached to any CubeSat mission using the puck space inside the P-Pod deployment system (64mm diameter, 36mm height). Once launched, the LOTUS is pushed upward from its position at the end of the cube, and power activated, allowing it to begin unfolding. The array unfolds using a Nitinol wire skeleton to deploy. Once deployed, the begins the process tracking the sun to improve exposure time and thus power output.

LOTUS

Gimbal Acutated VTOL Nacelle (GAVN) is a tri-rotor UAV that is uses thrust vectoring instead of the need for frequest RPM changes. Thrust is provided by ducted fans housed inside gimbalactuated vertical takeoff and landing nacelles (GAVNs). This UAV served as a proof of concept that thrust vectoring could produce a stable and controllable aircraft.

GAVN

The goal of the Moment Arm Propulsion System (MAPS) project was to expand the capabilities of attitude control systems for a 3U Mars-imaging CubeSat mission. The vision behind MAPS is that is performs momentum dumping and recharging of RWA's using deployable micropulsed plasma thrutsers. A prototype was designed and built at a proof of concept.

MAPS

Almost all satellites depend on solar energy in order to power its internal components. Due to the limited space on spacecraft, especially for CubeSats, and the large amount of energy required to send objects into orbit, research was done as part of a senior design project to develop a solar pannel array that would be able to fit within a cubsat and would be able to expand and retract in orbit while meeting all the necessary power generation requirements.

SUNBIRD

Advisors

(215) 895-1868

ajmal.yousuff@drexel.edu

Dr. Ajmal Yousuff

Associate Professor

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Specialties

Controls and Aerospace

Director

(215) 895-2261

ms354@drexel.edu

Dr. Marek Swoboda

Associate Professor

Department

Biomedical Engineering

Specialties

Human Safety Systems

Joseph Kujawski

Consultant

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Specialties

Electronics and Aerospace

(215) 571-3519

les@drexel.edu

Dr. Leslie Lamberson

Assistant Professor

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Specialties

Aerospace and Mechanics

Undergraduates

faw28@drexel.edu

Frederick Wachter

Laboratory Manager

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Interests

Robotics and Automation

Current Year

Junior

aei29@drexel.edu

Amanda Ireland

Previous Lab Manager

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Interests

Aerospace and Robotics

Current Year

Senior

Noah Alessi

Previous Lab Manager

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Interests

Space, Propulsion

Current Year

Pre-Junior

Alumni

Ian Bournelis

Previous Lab Manager

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Current Job

Lockheed Martin

Graduating Year

June, 2014

Michael Daily

Previous Lab Manager

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Current Job

Lockheed Martin

Graduating Year

June, 2015

Brandon Katz

Radio Club Manager

Department

Electrical Engineering

Graduating Year

June, 2016

Damien Turchi

Member

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Graduating Year

June, 2016

Contact Us

If you would like to contact us, please fill out the form below and we will respond as soon as possible.

Dr. Ajmal Yousuff

Laboratory Director

(215) 895-1868
ajmal.yousuff@drexel.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics
3141 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Frederick Wachter

Laboratory Manager

faw28@drexel.edu

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