Rosetta-Webconference at DLR's

Today, we visited the DLR (Deutsches Luft- und Raumfahrtzentrum) in Cologne in order to participate in an international webconference about the Rosetta / Philae mission.

After having arrived at about 10am, we were welcomed by the organisators and could get comfortable. We were glad to have the unique opportunity of taking a look at models and the team's project room.

During the webconference itself, there were three project leaders who gave presentations about different aspects of the mission. The audience consisted of ten student groups from all over the world that were connected via webcams and a live-chat. There were groups from Italy, Poland, Germany, Australia, Sudan, Austria and Egypt. As we were able to participate live at the DLR, we sat behind the project leaders. After the introductary presentations, we were all free to ask questions.

To conclude, we can definetly say that we had a great time today and learned a lot about the Rosetta  / Pilae mission. It was even more interesting considering the fact that parts our our CanSat-mission were directly inspired by this one.

We would really like to thank the DLR, espacially Mr Zywicki, for offering us the great opportunity to participate in this conference.

If you wish to get some information on the mission, we recommend the following websites:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/   (a blog by the European Space Agency about the mission)
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta   (information about the mission - official ESA website)
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10394/   (information about the mission  - official DLR website)  

Interview at WDR - Update

The interview will be published tomorrow: Tuesday, 9th February between 3.05 and, 5 pm (WDR,  "Leonardo"). It is available on the internet:

http://www1.wdr.de/radio/podcasts/wdr5/leonardo302.html (01:04:50).

Interview at WDR

Today, we visited the WDR studios in Cologne. We had been invited to an interview about our CanSat work by a team member of the science programme "Leonardo" (radio station WDR5).

It was real fun talking about our time during the preparations for the 2015 competition as well as about the Launch Campaign in Bremen.

 

Later on, we went to the Cologne city centre in order to find sponsors. - If you are interested in supporting our mission, or know someone who might be, we would be really happy if you contacted us.

Portugal!

We promised you to always keep you updated about information concerning the location of the 2016 Launch Campaign.
Finally, we are able to do so:

The Launch Campain will take place in Portugal from 22 to 26 June 2016, as ESA recently announced.

Our whole team is very excited and looking forward to a hopefully great experience!

Improving our air samples and triggering mechanism

At the moment, we are working on improvements to our air samples and triggering mechanism.

Up to now, our triggering mechanism contains tiny pins, loops and much precision work shortly before the Launch Campaign. Working on it during the 2015 competition under pressure of time was really stressful. The new mechanism will work with a rotating panel and strings. We'll keep you up to date how exactly it will work when we've figured out how we're going to proceed.

As mentioned in the previous post, we're going to use vacuettes to collect the air samples.

To make them fit into our CanSat, we're gonna have to restructure it. In addition to that, we are at the moment planning to exchange some of the CanSat's components that didn't work properly last year or will be unnecessary during this year's competition.

We're also planning the exact produre of collecting the air samples. For example, the vacuettes have to be tested, placed in the can properly and brought together with the triggering mechanism. You see: there's lots of work  to be done.

Thanks to Greiner Bio-One!

We would like to thank Greiner Bio-One for supporting us with vacuettes for our air samples!


In the 2015 competition, we had problems with our air samples caused by our procedure of establishing a vacuum inside of the containers shorty before the Launch Campaign. The vacuum didn't last long enough for the samples to be secured doring the flight and our search of the CanSat.


Vacuettes carry a great advantage for us: They are pre-evacuated, so we can use them without having to modify them. They are also much more leakproof than the syringes that we used the last time.



Tag der offenen Tür

Today was our school's "Tag der offenen Tür".

As this is an event where many people come to visit our school and are interested in its different projects, it was a perfect possibility for us to talk to peolpe and present our CanSat-mission to a new, but interested community.

We had most of our material and our prototypes in an exhibition and were of course present to explain how they work and what we do with them. Many adults and children were very curious and asked a lot of questions that we were happy to answer.

Thanks to the TH in Cologne!

Today, we visited the TH in Cologne in order to thank Mr. Prof. Kronberger and his team.

They were the ones who supported us really much and helped us building our helix-antenna. It worked really well during the competition in Bremen and we are planning to reuse it in June.