Wide Area Surveillance Projectile (WASP)
The goal of this project was to design and develop an unprecedented new product for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (CSDL). A mixed team of SM and MEng students tackled the problem of developing a cannon-launched reconnaissance flyer. A motivation for this new product was to provide a relatively inexpensive reconnaissance asset for small groups of combatants. To meet both the technical and economic goals, a flyer had to be designed that was light enough to stay aloft for a suitable information gathering duration and yet be strong enough to sustain 15,000 times its weight (15,000 "g"s) at launch.

MEng students dominated the leadership, requirement prioritization, process structuring, high-g testing/validation, and key "unobtainium" facets of the project. The student team was honored by having their project accomplishments highlighted in an Aviation Week article (AW&ST, 31 August '98, P.57). This work was the basis for CSDL initiating the second

IT/Draper Technology Development Partnership Project…. one of only a few $1M IR&D "Lead Projects." Draper has received three DARPA-funded contracts (> $2M) to pursue WASP product engineering & manufacturing development. Draper's goal for 2001/2 is to transition the WASP Program to the Army and have a supplier produce the new product. The concept has also led to CSDL spin-off programs like "flyer-in-a-can" that can be carried to specific sites using aircraft.

A highlight of this project was the U.S. Army support which included use of test facilities. WASP design components were individually tested at the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey and the entire WASP system was fired from an 8-inch Navy cannon at Dahlgren, Virginia.

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	2.		WASP Trajectory Transition to	4.
	1.		Flight Configuration	5.
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Send comments to: boppe@mit.edu