Tag Archives: Education

May 6 2012

Glasgow school wins CanSat launch competition

The UK’s Alpha team from Bearsden Academy in Glasgow were awarded first place in the second European CanSat Competition. 14 secondary school teams, from different ESA member states, participated in the finals of the competition at the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway.

The first prize was awarded to team Alpha, from the UK. Credits: ESA / J Makinen. (JPG, 61 Kb) CanSats are miniature simulation satellites the size of a soda can. The students had to build their own space experiments, fitting all the major subsystems including radio communications on 433/434 MHz and power into just 350ml.

The tiny CanSats were designed to separate from their rocket and conduct their missions as they descended on parachutes to the ground for recovery by the teams. They were launched in pairs from seven small Intruder rockets up to an altitude of about 1km.

Setting up an Intruder rocket for launch. Credits: ESA / J Makinen. (JPG, 68 Kb) Despite very strong winds, all of the CanSats were successfully recovered, with the exception of the Spanish one, which failed to communicate with the ground station.

The UK team received good telemetry data on 434.25 MHz, but were a little disappointed that their miniature rover deployed earlier than planned. The other teams, from Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Norway, Romania, Italian, Irish, Greek, Portugese had varying degrees of success.

Once they analysed the results of their missions, the teams were judged by a board composed of technical experts from space agencies and industry. Following the UK team in second place was the Icaromenippus 3D team from the 3rd General Lyceum of Mytilini, Strati Myrivili, Greece, with the Portuguese Azorean Shearwater team from EBS Santa Maria, Vila do Porto in the Azores in third place.

“The standard of the projects was really high and the judges were very impressed by the professional attitude of the students,” said Helen Page, the ESA CanSat Project Coordinator. “They learned an enormous amount about space science, engineering and technology, as well as developing practical skills and experiencing the excitement of a launch campaign at a world-class rocket range.”

Students from the Norwegian team Navican testing their CanSat's parachute. Credits: ESA / J Makinen. (JPG, 72 Kb) The 2012 European CanSat competition was organised by ESA’s Education Office in collaboration with the Norwegian Centre for Space-related Education (NAROM). For more details about the teams involved visit the ESA website.

The Scottish CanSat Competition was organised using the STEM Ambassador Network, a list of the Scottish schools involved and 70cm frequencies is at
http://www.fistraltraining.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126&Itemid=75

Scottish CanSat Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scottish-Cansat-Competition/136524309785701

CanSat website http://cansat.eu/

May 2 2012

High School Students Build Amateur Radio CubeSat

TJ3Sat (pronounced TJ CubeSat) is scheduled to be the first satellite to be flown and built by high school students.

The satellite is a product of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology’s Systems Engineering class. During this three year long endeavor approximately 30 high school students ranging from sophomores to seniors will have contributed.

The project is broken down into individual subsystems that are assigned to groups of students. Each subsystem is assigned an industry representative that acts as a mentor to the students. In the end TJ3Sat will act as an educational resource for K-12 education worldwide.

The primary payload of the TJ3Sat is a TextSpeak module, which converts serial data into spoken voice. Coupled with the Stensat Radio, coded data will be transmitted to the satellite and will be relayed back to Earth over an Amateur Radio frequency.

It is understood the CubeSat uplink with be in the 435 MHz band with the downlink in the 145 MHz band.

Watch TJ CubeSat Fit Check

TJ3Sat http://tj3sat.wikidot.com/

Mar 24 2012

KARI CanSat at Korean Education Exhibition Fair


At the Education Exhibition Fair held in the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) young people where able to take part in making a CanSat.

The CanSat was then launched on a helium balloon and transmitted back video pictures.

Watch KARI CanSat (in Korean)

Mar 11 2012

Radio Amateur Encourages Engineering as a Career

Ali Guarneros Luna KJ6TVO has been involved in the development of the amateur radio CubeSat TechEdSat. In this video she talks to teenagers at a Careers Night about her aspiration to become an engineer.

Watch Career Night – Ali Luna

Ali Guarneros Luna KJ6TVO was born in Mexico City and now lives in San Jose, California. She received her BS in Aerospace Engineering at San Jose State University in 2010 and will complete her MS in Aerospace Engineering from San Jose State University in 2012.

She currently works with the Edison Program, Small Spacecraft Payload and Technologies (SSPT) and SPHERES National Lab at NASA Ames Research Center. Under the Edison Program, Ali works on development of CubeSat projects, including TechEdSat, as the System Engineering, Mission And Ground Operations, and Launch Vehicle Service expert.

Under the Small Spacecraft Payload and Technologies Program, Ali works as Engineering Support for different missions, most currently in NLAS. At SPHERES National Lab, Ali works as Engineer support for Ground Lab and Operation Support.

Jan 11 2012

UK space environments conference

 

UK Space Agency logoDuring the summer a number of UK institutions currently active or interested in space biomedicine research and education formally agreed to collaborate in order to identify and pursue a national strategy for space biomedicine research and development.

“UK Research & Education for Space & Terrestrial Benefit”

The UK Space Biomedicine Association invites students, professionals and the general public to the first UK Space Environments Conference in Aberdeen, 16 – 17 June, 2012. This is the only conference where representatives from UK organisations actively engaged in fields such as Space Biomedicine, Exobiology, Astrochemistry and Microgravity-physics will collectively meet to aid the development of space environments research and education in the UK. The meeting represents a unique opportunity to:

  • Showcase current activities related to research and education in the space environment.
  • Interact and collaborate with pioneers & colleagues from numerous disciplines involved in R&D associated with aspects of the space environment.
  • Contribute to and learn about the development of a national UK space biomedicine strategy.

Keynote speakers will include Dr Jeff Davis, Director of NASA space life science and medical operations.

Venue: Satrosphere Science Centre, 179 Constitution Street, Aberdeen, AB24 5TU
Dates: 16-17th June 2012
Early Registration fee: Professionals- £81, Student tickets- £57, before 1 April 2012.

For more details visit the UK Space Biomedicine Association website.

Jan 5 2012

FUNcube at Association for Science Education Conference

Graham Shirville G3VZV on AMSAT-UK Stand at ASE

Graham Shirville G3VZV on the AMSAT-UK Stand

The 3 day Association for Science Education Conference opened in Liverpool on Thursday, January 5.

AMSAT-UK have a stand at the conference to show the potential of the FUNcube satellite as a teaching tool.

The FUNcube project aims to boost young people’s interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

When FUNcube-1 is launched this Autumn school students will be able to receive the satellite data stream which contains telemetry — things like battery voltages and solar panel currents — and from this they’ll be able to deduce things like the spin rate of the satellite, and what happens to temperatures when it goes into or out of eclipse.

Additionally students will be able to send, via a moderator, ‘Fitter’ (as in ‘FUNcube Twitter’) messages of 200 characters to the satellite.  FUNcube-1 will then transmit them down to Earth on its 1200 bps BPSK beacon.

The event takes place at the University of Liverpool from January 5-7. Admission to the exhibition is free, details at http://www.ase.org.uk/