Nordic ESERO CanSat Competition 2015 (Day 4)

We woke up expecting present the data that we collected during the pervious day's drop test. However, miraculously the weather had cleared up a little and during the night NAROM had set up the launchpad, so that we could launch our CanSat during the morning. We quickly gathered our equipment and went to the launch sight. All the CanSats were prepared for launch and we were spilt in groups of two CanSats per rocket. Every team, but one, got to launch their CanSat. On Monday we had a pre-launch meeting, were we had covered safety information and the countdown procedure. Our CanSat was in the second rocket that launched and unlike the other rocket launches, we were able to see our CanSat being deployed from the rocket and see part of its descent to the ground. The weather was constantly chancing; between snow, rain and sunshine and the winds were very gusty. Hence, the launch was hectic. Moments before our rocket launched, we had issues receiving telemetry, as our ground antenna did not work properly. Luckily, the wire fell out of our antenna and we discovered the problem. Once repaired, we received telemetry all the way up and down.

Our secondary mission for the CanSat was to monitor atmospheric conditions and solar radiation, in regards to air pollution, using different sensors.

Following the launch, we had a post-launch meeting, where we were debriefed. We then had a very short amount of time to process the telemetry and data that we had collected and to prepare our final presentation, that we gave later in the afternoon. No CanSats had been recovered from the launch at this point in time. However, we were still hopeful that ours would be recovered, as our GPS was working and we were quite certain that our CanSat had landed next to a road and we had its coordinates. During our presentation, the judges told us that two CanSats had been recovered. Our CanSat and that of the other team, with whom we had shared a rocket. The two CanSats parachutes had become entangled and had descended together. All the sensors on our CanSat had worked a planned and all the data was within its expected range. We had also received all our telemetry and data and when we later checked it, it matched that on the SD-card. Hence, we were very satisfied.

Launch site

Launch Site

Here are the rockets that the CanSats were launched with

Here Anna is loading the CanSat into the rocket

Here we are solving the problem that we had with our ground antenna

Here we are watching the CanSat being deployed, while collecting data