Ohio State Students' Experiment Will Reach International Space Station

A multidisciplinary team led by aerospace engineering students and faculty is preparing an experiment to be launched aboard a Japanese spacecraft to the International Space Station in January.

The Ohio State experiment is focused on isolating the effect of gravity on the growth of ceria nanoparticles. Ceria (CeO2) is used as a support or catalyst in many technologically important reactions, such as high-temperature coatings for jet engines, solid oxide fuel cells for next-generation automobiles, and emissions abatement. The experiment will contribute information on whether reduced gravity leads to a higher level of performance for the catalyst.

“This project has the value of scientific merit while serving as an instructional opportunity for undergraduate students on the team. It’s very much a real-world engineering challenge that we’ll be attacking on a fundamental level,” says Disotell.The student team is led by aerospace engineering major Kevin Disotell and advised by Hayrani Oz, professor of aerospace engineering. In addition, professor Umit Ozkan and Burcu Mirkelamoglu, a research associate, both of the Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are technical advisors for the team.

Eleven aerospace engineering undergraduates will contribute to the design, testing, validation and extensive documentation required to launch the payload.

The Ohio State experiment will be sent into space aboard an unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle managed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency in a CubeLab, which is produced by a company called NanoRacks and has a side length of 10 centimeters as well as its own thermal, power, and data management systems. Once it arrives at the International Space Station, it will be placed in the U.S. National Laboratory there called Destiny, where NanoRacks operates a hardware platform known as an EXPRESS (Expedite the Processing of Experiments to Space Station) Rack. Each rack is capable of stowing 16 of the small CubeLab enclosures. Through financial assistance and engineering consultation from Belcan Corp., an engineering support firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio State’s project will be one of the first scientific experiments from academia that NanoRacks will handle.

The Space Station is a prime site for conducting the Ohio State experiment, says Disotell, because the effective acceleration at the radius of the ISS orbit is about one-millionth of that at sea-level on Earth. The proposed experiment is aimed at synthesizing cerium (IV) oxide (ceria) nanoparticles in the presence of microgravity and returning the samples to Earth in order to study the effect of gravity on the crystal growth and defect structure.