Danny Kumpf Email & Phone Number

Princeton, New Jersey, United States

Princeton, New Jersey, United States

Princeton, New Jersey, United States

Buffalo/Niagara, New York Area

Greenbelt, Md

Summers of 2016 and 2017 - Evaluation of COTS Telescope Mount for Optical Communications.Successful data transmission over optical wavelengths (both visible and infrared) requires that the uplink and downlink both exhibit precise tracking of the other terminal. Over the course of two summers, I worked with a small team to determine whether a low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf telescope mount could deliver the requisite pointing and tracking accuracy for an optical ground terminal. My… Show more Summers of 2016 and 2017 - Evaluation of COTS Telescope Mount for Optical Communications.Successful data transmission over optical wavelengths (both visible and infrared) requires that the uplink and downlink both exhibit precise tracking of the other terminal. Over the course of two summers, I worked with a small team to determine whether a low-cost, commercial-off-the-shelf telescope mount could deliver the requisite pointing and tracking accuracy for an optical ground terminal. My responsibilities included working with vendors to install hardware at our observing location, scheduling and leading nighttime observing/testing sessions, and analyzing the resultant data from various satellite tracks. This tracking data was in the form of CCD images taken of satellites during observable passes. To analyze the data, I wrote image processing scripts within Python to identify the position of the tracked satellite within each of hundreds of images. I then compiled the results of these scripts to analyze the tracking accuracy of the mount. In addition, the scripts were used in real-time to send tracking offsets to the mount, yielding a rudimentary form of autonomous closed-loop tracking. The results of this project indicate that the evaluated mount is indeed capable of the requisite pointing and tracking accuracy. Show less

Ithaca, New York Area

I led the Cornell Rocketry Team (CRT) to third place out of about 50 university teams in the 2017 NASA Student Launch competition. The competition objective is to launch a high powered rocket, carrying at least one payload, to exactly 5280 ft. The competition also contains a significant technical writing component, as teams must write a project proposal, PDR, CDR, and FRR totaling about 800 pages. In 2017, CRT won the Project Review award for “the best combination of written reviews and formal… Show more I led the Cornell Rocketry Team (CRT) to third place out of about 50 university teams in the 2017 NASA Student Launch competition. The competition objective is to launch a high powered rocket, carrying at least one payload, to exactly 5280 ft. The competition also contains a significant technical writing component, as teams must write a project proposal, PDR, CDR, and FRR totaling about 800 pages. In 2017, CRT won the Project Review award for “the best combination of written reviews and formal presentations.” As team Safety Officer, I also helped the team win the Safety Award for “most successfully maximizing safety and science value in the design.”My duties as team lead were varied, and included:• Choosing subteam leaders, determining team structure, and delegating design work among the team's 40 members. • Developing a schedule for the project, whose lifetime was August 2016 - April 2017.• Setting and enforcing internal deadlines, and ensuring that all subsystems met external deadlines.• Scheduling and moderating team leads meetings and all-team meetings.• Developing and maintaining the team style guide for documentation.• Organizing, supervising, and editing all documentation (Project Proposal, PDR, CDR, FRR). • Training new team members in the use of SolidWorks. Show less