Team Miles’s Reasons to Be Thankful

The last month has been full of good news.  Late October we found out we placed 1st for GT3 and just last week we heard that we had passed our Phase I Safety review, another big milestone.  This win gets us another $30,000, going straight to more prototyping.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/centennial_challenges/30k-awarded-in-third-round-of-cube-quest-challenge/
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_awards_prizes_to_Top_5_teams_in_3rd_round_of_Cube_Quest_Challenge_999.html

Safety is paramount to getting that spot on the SLS launch.  We can win in the design competition, but still have to pass two more phases of the safety panel review. Phase II is coming up in the next couple of months, and Phase III will follow once we have passed that.   The PSRP, Payload Safety Review Panel, has been such a great help in guiding the team as we write these documents.
As an example of the safety standards we adhere to: because we are using iodine as a propellant the storage tank needs to be considered a pressure vessel because iodine is hazardous.  So while the propellant tank isn’t pressurized, that’s the standard we have to design it to.
There are three documents that we study. If you are interested in seeing some of the safety documents we have to follow, you can go to:

• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/sls-plan-217_slsp_exploration_mission-1_secondary_payload_safety_review_process_baseline.pdf –
  SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEMS PLAN (SLSP) EXPLORATION MISSION -1 SECONDARY PAYLOAD SAFETY REVIEW PROCESS
• https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/sls-rqmt-216_slsp_exploration_mission-1_safety_requirements_for_secondary_payload_hardware_baseline.pdf –
  SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM PROGRAM (SLSP) EXPLORATION MISSION 1 (EM-1) SAFETY REQUIREMENTS FOR SECONDARY PAYLOAD HARDWARE
• The next most important document we follow is NASA-STD-5001, Structural Design and Test Factors of Safety for Spaceflight Hardware. https://standards.nasa.gov/standard/nasa/nasa-std-5001

Keep tuned in to see what is coming up.  Our next Ground Tournament, GT4, comes up in February.  That’s the big one, on March 24th NASA will announce which three teams of the six eligible get the ride.
See https://www.nasa.gov/cubequest/schedule for more information.