DESIGN: HISTORY
 
 
How Did the SDC Come About?
Why Did Students Design the SDC?
Why at the University of Colorado?
How Did the SDC Get Approved?
 
       
 
 
How Did the SDC Come About?
SDC was funded as an Education and Public Outreach project for the New Horizon's mission. New Horizon's PI Alan Stern, along with Fran Bagenal and Mihaly Horanyi, felt strongly that a student-lead instrument could be a significiant experience for the students involved -- get students working with engineers and scientists to produce an instrument that could meet the same NASA requirements for all on-flight hardware. LASP has a long tradition of student instruments, starting with SME and finsihing most recently with SNOE, the Student Nitric Oxide Experiment. It seemed, then, that the addition of SDC here at LASP also made sense. LASP has a very strong history of involving students with their missions and experiments. They constantly recruit both undergraduates and graduates from the University of Colorado to help with instrument design, construction, maintainence and programming. So you can see from this, that having a student run and built instrument is just the next logical step.
 
 
Why Did Students Design the SDC?
Most instruments are designed by professionals. These are people who have been working in the field for years or decades. But, of course, these professionals all used to be students at one point. The goal of the SDC is to be able to give students a little head start with what they'll encounter as professionals; A little hands-on work with designing an instrument and managing it. While the instrument could have been done by professionals already in the field, a large part of space physics is training those who will come after. So the SDC is not just a scientific instrument, it's also an investment in the scientists of tomorrow.
 
 
Why at the University of Colorado?
The University of Colorado is a hotbed of research. If you look at just about any space mission, chances are good that somewhere on it, someone from the University of Colorado's Astrphysical and Planetary Sciences Dept. was involved. The physics and engineering programs at the University of Colorado are also both quite renowned, making it a natural place to keep a lively community of space research. In addition, the city of Boulder is home to many aerospace corporations, making this an even easier place to get materials needed. In addition, groups like LASP (which are comprised of CU professors and associates) allow many people to congregate ideas and goals.All in all, LASP is quite conducive to space reasearch, so it was a natural outcome that the SDC be centered here.
 
 
How Did the SDC Get Approved?
The SDC got approved through things like some of the meetings in the Team: Meetings section. Review boards look at the proposals of the students and decide whether or not it's worth their time and money. The PDR and the CDR determine whether or not building the instrument is worth it. If it is decided that it is, then the instrument gets a go-ahead and starts construction.