The Center for Space Hardware Assembly, Fabrication and Testing (C-SHAFT) at Georgia Tech (GT) is focused on research, prototyping and qualification of high-reliability micro-devices designed and built by the GT research community for deployment in outer space. The facility will be the first “Class-S” cleanroom fabrication facility on campus, and will promote hands-on undergraduate and graduate education in interdisciplinary ‘space technology’ demonstration efforts.
Georgia Tech has one of the largest and most diverse academic space research communities in the USA, with ~60 active faculty from AE, ECE, ME, CHBE, CHEM, PHYS, EAS, INTA and GTRI working in collaboration through the GT Center for Space Technology & Research (C-STAR). These researchers are developing a variety of space missions to study astrophysics, planetary science, robotics, materials science, and earth science. These explorations are most often achieved through fabrication of specialized sensors, space systems, and other micro-devices for integration within 10 cm/unit ‘cubesat’ platforms.
There are more than a half dozen such campus-wide space missions in various stages of design, fabrication, qualification and operation, including: PROX-1, OrCa, RANGE, TARGIT, MISSE-11, MISSE-12, microNIMBUS, and GT-1.
C-SHAFT fills a campus-wide capability void to facilitate and enable GT researchers to develop and deploy innovative experiments, architectures and designs in outer space. The research, prototype and qualification aspects of C-SHAFT are unique. C-SHAFT will utilize growing resources to develop prototyping, fabrication, assembly, test, and qualification capabilities to address the extreme requirements of the space flight environment (e.g., temperature, radiation, g-loads, pressure, magnetic fields, etc.). This Center provides a critically lacking campus resource ready to be utilized by an active and inclusive community of several dozen interdisciplinary space researchers at GT.