Iowa lands $1.5 million award to build advanced space equipment
The University of Iowa, a long-standing leader in the design and building of instruments for space-based missions, has been awarded nearly $1.5 million from NASA to purchase state-of-the-art equipment needed to build instruments for future missions.
The funds also will provide students more opportunities to obtain the instrument-building knowledge and training for careers in space exploration.
“This award is a recognition of the university’s infrastructure and long-standing excellence in building and delivering the highest-quality instruments to support NASA missions as well as an acknowledgment of the value in continuing to invest in the people at Iowa who have the sophistication and expertise in space instrument manufacturing,” says Casey DeRoo, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the award’s principal investigator.
The funds will help Iowa — which has built and designed instruments for missions that examine how the Earth and sun interact and that aim to better our understanding of quasars and black holes — retain its status as a go-to for instrument hardware manufacturing and to compete to lead space missions.
