/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12457412
We have a tray, which free floats when in microgravity, full of beads and simulant dust with specific properties and we can input energy into the system by firing solenoids at the tray sides. Then we record it and watch the long term evolution and clumping of them to help better understand early planetary formation and how particulates grow past the meter size barrier.

The very very early (dust into very tiny particulates) and later stages (gravitational collapse) of planetary formation are generally understood, but the intermediary phase where the particulates are in the mm and cm size ranges arent very well understood. Gravity isnt enough to pull them together so its mostly frictional and electrostatic interactions and that's what were trying to understand iirc.

Cost wise I think the original proposal many years ago was $350k, a lot lower than what we knew other people were proposing. We used very little COTS components and engineered almost everything ourselves outside of a endurosat transceiver. The entire project was a mismanaged nightmare, additionally we were essentially told after a certain point every 6 weeks that in 6 weeks we would be flying, so we were in this constant state of being rushed and having to apply bandaid solutions to our problems.