On Tuesday, September 18, faculty and graduate students from the Department of Space Studies brought hardware to the Alerus Center to participate in the 2012 North Dakota EPSCoR Conference.   The conference was held to celebrate the scientific achievements of students across the state and to recognize the ideas brought forth by those students.  In celebration of this theme, the Department brought two space suits to the conference and also displayed the Lunar Pressurized Electric Rover (PER) front and center.  The space suits and rover were designed and built by students at UND over the past 3 years. 

The PER is an analog lunar rover designed to transport two astronauts around a planetary surface while looking for geologic sites for studying.  The two space suits which were on display were the North Dakota eXperimental 1 (NDX-1) Martian analog suit and the North Dakota eXperimental 2 Analog Testing (NDX-2AT) suit.  The NDX-2AT will be attached to the back of the PER via a “suit port” which connects the two elements together, allowing astronauts to put on, or don, the suit from inside of the rover. 

These three elements of the Department of Space Studies were visited by most of the participants of the conference, with a majority asking for photographs to be taken with the items.  The Dakota Space Society (DSS) students who were present at the conference answered participants’ questions about the rover and space suits.  Those students were Wataru Suzuki, Annie Wargetz, David Booth, Stephanie Finnvik, and Tiffany Swarmer, all of which are masters candidates in the Department of Space Studies.

As part of the poster session, Wataru Suzuki and Annie Wargetz displayed their posters regarding their respective work contributing to the Human Spaceflight Lab.  Wataru’s poster discussed the design for the control of temperature and humidity inside of the Inflatable Lunar Habitat (ILH) currently in construction in Clifford Hall.  Annie’s poster described the design of the interior of the ILH to support a crew of four during a 30 day mission.  DSS student Stephanie Finnvik presented a poster regarding microgravity research opportunities for college students.