21/12/2021
Announcement 📢🛰
After 3 years of development of the CHESS space mission, a mission that consists of putting two 3u cubeSats in orbit for scientific purposes, the EPFL Spacecraft team, the team developing and coordinating CHESS, realized that because of the necessity of very specific skills in its members it would be a good idea to have a separate project which trains the new students interested in joining the development of CHESS. With this goal in mind, Cansat mission consists of a competition evaluating the development of a CanSat.
A CanSat is a miniature satellite integrated within the shape and volume of a can which is launched and deployed at high altitude and operates while in controlled descent.
The development of the satellite would last a full semester and each group (3-4 students) would have to develop its own. The development consists of designing, building, programming and testing the CanSat. All the CanSats will be launched and deployed at the end of the semester. For preparation purposes the students will be invited to 2 required workshops, which are basics of systems engineering and testing workshops, and 5 optional ones, those being embedded software, control electronics, recovery systems, telecommunication and power electronics workshops. Also, the teams will be in close contact with members from the main mission receiving feedback on their CanSat. There are a few required features the CanSats should have, like being able to measure pressure and temperature, but the teams are free to add all the features they like while respecting the requirements. Since they will be launched, the CanSats should also be able to withstand very high acceleration while remaining lightweight and precise.
The project would allow the participants to get familiar with not only the technical aspects of the development, giving them insight on what subsystem they are more comfortable with, but also the procedure behind missions like CHESS.