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What is DATA-CHASER?

DATA-CHASER is a student-designed, student-built, and student-operated space experiment which flew on space shuttle Discovery mission STS-85. It is a project of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, a group of colleges and universities in Colorado which support student-run space experimentation. This is the third space shuttle experiment package that CSGC has flown since it was founded in 1989.

DATA-CHASER consists of two separate but linked experiments; the first is DATA (Distributed Automation Technology Advancement) which tests out advanced remote control technologies. During the mission, the hardware onboard the space shuttle was monitored and controlled in real-time from the University of Colorado via the Internet, a significant advancement since shuttle experiments must currently be controlled on-site at various NASA centers.

The second experiment, CHASER (Colorado Hitchhiker And Student Experiment of solar Radiation) observed the sun in far ultraviolet wavelengths. These wavelengths directly affect ozone creation and depletion in the upper atmosphere, which in turn affects the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface. This data directly benefits current atmospheric, climate and environmental research.
Left to right, CHASER and DATA canisters as installed in Discovery's cargo bay (Discovery is on the pad, -vertical- in this picture, so "up" is towards the front of the cargo bay). The backpack on the CHASER canister is the mechanism for the motorized door covering the instruments. The package on top of the DATA canister is another IEH-2 experiment, GLO. Photo courtesy NASA.

DATA-CHASER is housed in two "hitchhiker" canisters, each about the size of a 55-gallon drum. These canisters are standardized NASA experiment containers, supplied by the Shuttle Small Payloads division of Goddard Space Flight Center. The canisters are mounted to a "bridge" which spans the shuttle's payload bay, and are connected to the shuttle's power and data systems. The pressurized DATA canister holds the flight computers and electronic systems. The unpressurized CHASER canister holds the solar-viewing instruments. CHASER is fitted with a motorized lid which can be opened and closed via astronaut control. The lid was opened shortly after Discovery reached orbit, and was only closed when the shuttle was ready to land and/or to avoid contaminating the instruments during "dirty" shuttle activities such as thruster firings. The instruments in the CHASER canister cannot move by themselves; the entire shuttle was maneuvered so the sun was within the instrument's fixed field of view. These "viewing opportunities" were planned and scheduled months in advance.

DATA-CHASER was just one experiment on the International Extreme-Ultraviolet Hitchhiker 2 (IEH-2) platform, all of which observed various space phenomena (the sun, moon, planets, comets, and even the "airglow" which appears around the shuttle) in various frequencies of ultraviolet light.

Over 100 students, the majority of them undergraduates, have worked on DATA-CHASER over its 3-year design, build, and flight phases. Funds have come from NASA grants, the University of Colorado, and a great deal of industry technical support and donations.
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©Copyright 2001
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Last updated April 1, 2001

Mision Statement

The Colorado Space Grant College of the University of Colorado plans to demonstrate distributed, interactive and intelligent control approaches that enable space payloads to be operated by the payload engineers and scientists from their home institutions.

Project Objectives

To demonstrate technologies in distributed and automated space data systems.
  • Intelligent techniques for on-board and ground-based control
  • Cooperative control by machines and people
  • Interactive, realtime payload control by ground scientists and engineers
  • Distributed control to support distributed and remote users
  • Robust on-board and ground automation

Team Objectives

To Measure full disk solar UV irradiance, and obtain images of the sun in Lyman-Alpha.
  • Correlate solar activity with radiation flux
  • Associate Lyman Alpha fluxes with individual active regions

To provide hands-on educational experience for students in the design, development, operation and analysis of space payloads.

Mission Overview

DATA-CHASER consists of two synergetic projects, DATA and CHASER, whose respective objectives complement each other. The dual project will fly as a Hitchhiker payload aboard the Space Shuttle sometime in 1996.

DATA (Distribution and Automation Technology Advancement) seeks to advance human support technology, and it derived its funding from an In-Step Proposal to NASA. By integrating advanced data system tools and technologies, DATA will help improve space payload operations. Specifically, DATA will

  1. establish interactive payload control for the payload engineers and scientists themselves
  2. distribute control to separate and remote users
  3. create robust on-board and ground automation
  4. establish a cooperative control by people and automated systems.
To meet these objectives, DATA will interface with CHASER.

CHASER (Colorado Hitchhiker and Student Experiment of Solar Radiation) continues in the footsteps of the two previous Colorado Space Grant Shuttle Payloads, ESCAPE (known by NASA as SUVE) and ESCAPE II. CHASER will measure the full-disk solar ultraviolet and soft x-ray irradiance as well as image the sun in its Lyman-Alpha wavelength. Chaser consists of three instruments: LASIT, SXEE (pronounced "sexy"), and FARUS. With these data, we hope to help correlate solar activity with radiation flux and associate Lyman-Alpha fluxes with individual active regions.