UAlberta engineering students John Grey, Darian Van Paridon, and Henry Su are preparing to launch a rocket in Norway, as members of the CaNoRock program.
(Edmonton) This week, three University of Alberta engineering students are working in Norway to launch a sounding rocket into the atmosphere, participating in international space research.
"This opportunity gives you an insight into a field you would not have accessed otherwise," said John Grey, one of the three program participants from the University of Alberta.
Darian Van Paridon and Grey, both fourth-year engineering physics students, and Henry Su, a fourth-year chemical engineering student, are joining students from the University of Calgary and the University of Saskatchewan, as the Canadian team of the Canada-Norway Student Sounding Rocket (CaNoRock) exchange program. The program is a partnership between Canadian universities, the University of Oslo, the University of Tromsø, and the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway.
"It would be great to see all the teams come together to produce a deliverable in five days," said Su.
"It's not like you can get on a rocket range every day. You can't just begin building rockets," says Van Paridon of the unique chance to get a real taste of aerospace engineering.
From October 3 to 7, the students will be working in Norway on site of the Andøya space centre, 300 km inside the Arctic Circle. The Canadian team will be paired up with space scientists and fellow engineering students from the University of Oslo to assemble, program, and launch a rocket.
The rocket will be collecting atmospheric data from a unique rage of altitudes where other devices such as weather balloons and satellites cannot go.
The exchange program gives undergraduate students with a keen interest in space research a front-row view of the space industry. More specifically, the students will be working on rocket system design, experiments, payload instrument design, telemetry, and physics.
All three engineering students are space research junkies.
"I'm passionate about space and technology, and want to pursue a career in satellite and space technology design," said Grey.
Su is on the same wavelength: "It's a difficult field to break into for undergraduate students. This experience will give some clarity in terms of getting a career in the field," he said.
Both Van Paridon and Grey are members of the in AlbertaSat team. The team's first satellite, ExAlta-1, launch's scheduled for December 30th.