Current Projects

Listed below are ongoing SSPL projects that students are working on right now! If you’d like to join the team, please visit our Get Involved page.

National Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP):

The NEBP project team is looking to gather data about radio waves and how they are affected during a solar eclipse. The process of gathering data will be performed through a payload attached to a weather balloon. This project will provide peers with the opportunity to travel to two different sites in Fall of 2023 and Spring of 2024 (not guaranteed) to measure this data during the solar eclipses. The project has already been through the tests of the Fall 2023 eclipse and preparations are being made for the upcoming total eclipse.

Project Leads: Patrick Donato (pjd5319@psu.edu) and Dylan Harter (dmh6618@psu.edu)

NASA Big idea challenge 2024:

The BIG Idea Challenge for 2024 surrounds the concept of inflatables. We are working to develop an inflatable infostructure that can house an enclosed environment. This technology would allow for any construction requiring a specific environment such as concrete construction printing. The project is currently in the proposal writing phase.

Project Leads: Noah Stoudt, Kaiden Smith, Meerav Shah