Search Results

Over a one-year period beginning in March, 2005, and with a materials budget of approximately $25,000, the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium developed a pressurized planetary space suit concept demonstrator in conjunction with institutions of higher education across the state. This project sought to combine educational instruction in space suit design and manufacturing while simultaneously developing a usable test article incorporating technical approaches appropriate to the project's schedule and budgetary constraints. The North Dakota Experimental (NDX) Suit serves as a testbed for new planetary suit materials and component assemblies. Designed around a dual-plane enclosure ring built on a composite hard upper torso (HUT), the NDX is designed for an operating differential pressure of 26.2 kPa. In order to test a two-chamber suit concept, the NDX features a neck dam assembly that divides the helmet breathing cavity from the body below the neck.

The North Dakota Citation Research Aircraft is a Cessna Citation II twin-engine fan-jet aircraft modified to be an atmospheric research platform that has been used on many field projects since the 1970s. The typical sampling speed of the modified Citation II is 160 knots indicated air speed (IAS), with sampling at altitudes up to 12.1 km (40,000 ft). The Citation Research Aircraft was operated by the University of North Dakota (UND) for many years but is now operated by Weather Modification International (WMI) of Fargo, North Dakota. WMI and UND together provide a unique test facility that is capable of deploying a wide range of instrumentation. WMI has the experience to install the custom instrumentation required for a specific field project and the expertise to conduct the most demanding aircraft sampling, including thunderstorm in-situ measurements.

Entrepreneurial innovation that spurs economic development requires a collaborative cluster of cooperative effort, across a diverse ecosystem of partners. Literature provides resounding evidence to support the notion that an innovative, entrepreneurial ecosystem is critical to both successful economic development and industry sector growth. The UAS/AUS industry sector is a fast-growing sector across the United States, with regional leadership demonstrated in North Dakota, California, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. This case study is focused on investigating how the North Dakota autonomous systems ecosystem continues to evolves and develop mechanisms and partnerships to address industry pain points, facilitate cutting edge research, ensure high-quality UAS/AUS testing, and support an adaptive business development pipeline across the entrepreneurial life cycle.