What Constellation is
SEARCH (Space and Earth Analogs Research Chapter) is a registered student organization at Purdue University. Its members run analog astronaut training, bioastronautics research, space habitat design, and outreach programs — work that spans dozens of people, several semesters, and a constant turnover of students.
Constellation is the internal web application SEARCH built to manage that work. One idea sits underneath it: work has a state, and the state lives in one place — not in someone's memory, not in a Slack thread from three weeks ago, and not in a Drive folder that four people have a different version of.
It is operated by the student organization for its own members. There is no paid tier, no advertising, and no public sign-up.
What members use it for
- Projects and tasks
- A board per project, with assignments, priorities, due dates, dependencies, and a record of who changed what.
- Milestones and blockers
- Marking why something is stuck in a way the system understands, so it shows up in reports instead of being rediscovered later.
- Files and CAD parts
- A parts vault with version history, check-out, and change requests, backed by the club's Google Drive.
- Events and scheduling
- Meeting polls, RSVPs, and a shared calendar for club activities.
- Outreach and writing
- Drafting and publishing the club's blog posts and press material, and keeping track of sponsor and partner relationships.
- Training
- Internal courses that teach new members how the club works, with progress tracked per person.
How Constellation uses Google Drive
Constellation connects one Google account, owned and controlled by the club. Individual members never connect personal Google accounts, and Constellation does not offer "sign in with Google" — members authenticate through the club's Slack workspace. A club administrator connects the shared account once, and can disconnect it at any time.
SEARCH keeps its documents, CAD files, images, and presentation decks in Google Drive. Constellation reads and writes those files so that a part in the vault, an image in a blog post, or a deck in a training course is the same file the club already has in Drive — rather than a second copy that drifts out of date.
| Permission requested | What it is used for |
|---|---|
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive |
Create and organize the club's project folders in Drive; upload and download CAD files and their revisions in the parts vault; store images used in published blog posts; read presentation decks that members link to a training course and convert them for display; and list the contents of a project's Drive folder inside the project's Files tab. |
openid, email |
Read the email address of the connected account, so administrators can confirm which Google account Constellation is using and detect if the wrong one was connected. |
Constellation reaches only files the connected club account can already access. Data received from Google APIs is used solely for the features described above. It is not sold, not used for advertising, and not used to train generalized artificial intelligence models. The full commitments, including the Google API Services User Data Policy Limited Use requirements, are set out in the Privacy Policy.
Who operates Constellation
Constellation is built and operated by SEARCH — Space and Earth Analogs Research Chapter, a registered student organization at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States.
SEARCH is student-run. Constellation is not an official service of Purdue University, and the University does not operate or administer it.
Questions about the application, including requests from reviewers who need a guided walkthrough of an account they cannot sign up for, can be sent to purduesearch@gmail.com.
Policies
- Privacy Policy — what Constellation collects, how it is used, and how to have it removed.
- Terms of Service — the terms that govern use of Constellation and the SEARCH website.