One of original Silicon Valley denizens sponsors student rocket project

ZiLOG, Inc., has announced that it is to sponsor the ARLISS Project -- A Rocket Launch for International Student Satellites -- a collaborative effort between students and faculty at Stanford University Space Systems Development Program and other educational institutions from around the world, and high power rocketry enthusiasts in Northern California. The project's goal is to build, launch, test and recover prototype satellites, miniaturized to fit inside a soft drink can -- "CanSats" -- in preparation for an Earth orbit or Mars orbit space launch.

ZiLOG's sponsorship entails its involvement in XPRS (Extreme Performance Rocket Ships) III, an event for rocket enthusiasts which is taking place this weekend -- September 24, 25 and 26 -- at Black Rock Playa, a dry lake bed one hundred miles north of Reno, Nevada.

Over the course of the weekend, Steve Pope, ZiLOG's Senior Principal Design Engineer, will launch four ZiLOG rockets carrying various payloads, including flight computers and video cameras, all using ZiLOG Flash microcontrollers (MCUs) -- Z8 Encore! and eZ80Acclaim!.

These launches will be filmed by G4Tech TV for broadcast at a later date. Furthermore, Pope filmed a short documentary about ZiLOG's rocket project for NBC's 'Tech NOW' which aired on Saturday September 25 at 6:30pm PST. "On NBC, I showed my ZiLOG flight computer that I built using the Z8 Encore! 8-bit Flash microcontroller" said Pope. "This flight computer has GPS, long range RF and measures pressure, altitude, temperature and controls an onboard wireless video camera. I also showed and built a high power rocket tug cart with motor drive video camera to film the rockets from the ground. An eZ80Acclaim! Flash MCU -- based ground station is used to display the rocket computer data and control the ground camera."

The ARLISS Project began in 1999 with a yearly trek to the Black Rock Playa. During the event each year, students from the US and Japan provide electronic gadgets to put in amateur high power rockets launched by members of Aeropac -- the Northern California High Power Rocket Club. These rockets take the gadgets up to an altitude of about two miles where they are ejected and return to earth on a small parachute. During the parachute descent, these gadgets perform various functions such as taking picture, measuring temperatures and vibrations for which the data is sent down by radio to receivers on the ground.

"The ARLISS Project challenges innovative students to get hands-on experience in the life-cycle (one year or less) of a space project," said Professor Robert Twiggs, who heads up the ARLISS Project at Stanford University. "Each CanSat team will design and build one or more satellites, and travel to the launch site in Black Rock, Nevada to supervise preparation, launch, telemetry download and safe recovery of their experiments and data."

"Each year, the gadgets sent up in the rockets have become more complex," continued Professor Twiggs. "The challenge was eventually set to develop a gadget that could be launched by these rockets in a carrier that is 6" diameter by 10" long that would autonomously return back to the launch site. The challenge is get into a 30 meter diameter circle near the launch site and it is aimed at those students that have interests and skills that go beyond the limitations of the CanSat payloads. A prize has been offered for the winner for the last two years for which no one has succeeded. The accumulated prize is now up to $2,000. Since these gadgets use many electronic parts and ZiLOG is a major supplier of these parts, this year ZiLOG has joined in on the fun encouraging the students in this challenge by matching the current $2,000 with another $2,000."

FMI: www.zilog.com, www.xprs.org, www.aeropac.org, www.geekfreaks.com