"We have a chance to contribute to the long-term astronaut safety on the space station," said Harry Ames, deputy director of the university's Space Dynamics Lab.
It is called a floating potential measurement unit. It departed Earth on July 4 aboard the shuttle Discovery and will be installed this week on the exterior of the space station.
The device will track electrons that have gathered on the station's solar panels and could be hazardous to astronauts.
NASA discovered that the space station picks up electrons and ions as it flies through a thin layer of the Earth's atmosphere, said professor Charles Swenson, who had a key role in developing the sensor.
"It's similar to picking up a charge and getting extra charge particles on your body," he said. "If you touch a doorknob they jump off your body."
NASA is concerned that charges on the solar panels of the space station will jump to another side of the station or even to an astronaut's suit, Swenson said.
The suit could be damaged, or an astronaut electrocuted, if a charge jumped from the station to the metal rings on a suit.
"They are in a sweaty, wet garment inside the suit, not very conducive to working in a high-voltage environment," Swenson said.
NASA has attached plasma instruments to lower the charge. The Utah State device will monitor the instruments to ensure they are working correctly.
"It's going to be exciting from a science standpoint to look at this data," Swenson said.
The sensor was stored in a nitrogen-filled bag for more than three years. It was supposed to be sent to space in 2003 but was delayed by the Columbia shuttle disaster.
