In the competition organised by ESA (European Space Agency competition, link to competition: https://www.esa.int/Education/CanSat and http://www.esero.sciencein.cz/cansat), which is called CanSat teams made of 4-6 members have to build an own satellite, which is taken by a dron or a rocket to a height of up to 2,000m. It is an international competition, rather European. In the European final, each country is represented by maximally one team (some countries have no representation at all and have to fight in a barrage for place in final round). After passing through two rounds of national competition, the Hatalom team from Opatov Grammar School became the team representing the Czech Republic. The European final will take place from 27 June to 1 July in the Azores in Portugal.
Source of picture: http://www.esero.sciencein.cz/articles/view/115-cansat-finale-2018
Our team is called Hatalom, we are six of our classmates, we all graduate and for many of us this is not the first technical project or scientific competition. The seventh member is our professor of physics, Mgr. Lenka Vinklerov?, who always helps us. We are divided into two teams of three – mostly technical and predominantly powerful, but it is not a solid division, everyone works on what he enjoys and what he understands.
CanSat itself is limited size cans of soft drinks (diameter 66mm, height 115mm), as well as the price of internal equipment of 10,000 crowns in the national competition, 500 Euro in the international (European) finals. The weight of CanSat must be between 300 and 350 grams, and there are many smaller restrictions traceable at the organizer’s website.
All CanSats also have to complete the primary mission, which means they have to measure temperature and pressure data and send basic telemetry once per second to the ground station. We use antennas with a frequency of 434.2 MHz to transmit. Everything else we do extra is related to our secondary mission.
Our secondary mission is the search for life and its stamps, but on this mission we meet the criteria of some others. We basically simulate landing on the extrasolar planet Kepler 62f. First, our Cansat lands with a propeller like a dron at a predetermined location, as a back-up landing system with a parachute. We also use the emergency communication line – the GSM module. During the flight, atmospheric composition, humidity, magnetic field strength, UV level and visible radiation will be measured and with the signal from the camera inside Cansat is transmitted over a separate antenna. After landing, the excavator takes a sample of clay and transfers it to the agar tank. That is all?
Source of picture: https://github.com/suchanekj/CanSatGOSA/
… After landing from the sample we analyze soil pH, we try to multiply the found microorganisms in larger agar and determine them. We put the measured values ??into our “simulation” atmosphere, which neglects much, but it gives basic data about the planet by combining the data known to us and measured by us.
Teams are judged not only in the design of the satellite, but also in the national competitions and the international round, as well as its story, team cohesion, presentation, educational benefits, publicity and the ability to find sponsors. The evaluation is carried out by a jury composed of half of laymen and experts.
Source of picture: http://www.esero.sciencein.cz/articles/view/115-cansat-finale-2018
Our project could not be done without a number of supporters and sponsors, as well as our patient and loving families. After our supporters we name flight tests as well as competition flights. I would like to name our sponsores – our general sponsor is Epson, the main sponsor of the Club of Grammar School Opatov friends and parents, Rotorama, PCBWay. Technically, we have also been supported by the Technical University of Liberec and the Prague Planetarium. We also hope that our sponsors will expand in front of the European round.
More about our project can be found on our website gosa.cz, we also have a Youtube channel, facebook page and GitHub, all traceable from links on the website.
Model:
Block diagram of CanSat:
The mission of CanSat
