Saturday 21 November 2020

Participation at ESERO CanSat Competition

BSN competes at CanSat competition

by Vaggelis Atlasis

Together with our schoolmates at the British School of the Netherlands Antoine and Ayrton and under the mentoring of our teacher Mr Hurley we submitted a proposal for participating at the Dutch CanSat competition, forming the team of "the Canservationists". A few days ago we were happy to hear the news that our proposal has been accepted for the next phase of the competition. 

CanSat is an ESERO project executed by NEMO on the instructions of the Netherlands SpaceOffice (NSO). The Ministry of Defense is the logistic partner during the test day and launch event. The aim of the competition is to spark young people’s enthusiasm for a career in technology. 

The competition is a simulation of a real satellite. The challenge of this competition is to fit all the major subsystems of a satellite inside the volume and shape of a soft drink can, which will be launched by a small rocket up to an altitude of 1 km. CanSat is equipped with an Arduino and various sensors.  

Each team has to accomplish two missions: the first, common for all of the teams, is to collect air temperature and pressure data as the CanSat descends. The second is chosen by the teams themselves. Our team will collect carbon dioxide and potentially other greenhouse  gases so as to correlate them with the temperature and the atmospheric pressure. Our objective is to better understand the global warming effect. 

In addition, as part of our secondary mission we will implement a tele-command system that will be operated via radio control. This system will allow us to change the rate at which we take measurements from our CanSat sensors. We will also integrate a Navigation sensor so that during the flight of the CanSat we may map our recorded data. Using this sensor, we will also be able to track our CanSat and find its location during its flight and after it lands.

(picture from https://www.esa.int/Education/CanSat_overview)

Our mission has been inspired by the ESA Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, which maps Air Quality ratings over a large part of Europe and surrounding areas. 

Currently we are in the design phase, choosing our sensors, finding sponsors to fund our project, designing the parachute, etc. 

We will keep you posted ;-) 

Filippos & Vaggelis Atlasis

members of “the  Canservationists”