Testing day

The whole team did work yesterday on the testing phase of our self-made Yagi Antenna. It was a day of hard work, but we managed to make our antenna to work.

We built and developed our antenna aiming to receive data from at least 1.5km distant points. The results were extremely positive, as we received strings of data when the transmitter and the receiver were more than 2km separate.

We used our CanSat kit to transmit some recognizable data. We programmed the Arduino board to emit known strings. These strings were got by the antenna, and the spectrum received was transformed by software in a PC, making these available as readable data.

The testing place was the Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial for the transmitter:

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The receiver was placed on Philip II Seat.

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Check out this article in Spanish

Which could be the space uses of our CanSat?

 In space, our CanSat could orbit over The Earth taking images with two cameras in order to make a 3D map, showing the landscape of The Earth. The 3D map of the Earth surface is the last step of google to extend our knowledge of our planet.

3D Overview of Denver  for Google Earth

Another use to our project would be to make a 3D map of the zone of the Moon were the rockets lands, by the use of two cameras located on the sides of the rocket. This is similar to the CanSat Competition, because the two cameras will be also placed on a Rocket. Here we can see some images of the lunar landscape.



 Image of the Moon's surface taken in 2009 by Lucian Curelaru



Another image of the lunar landscape.

You can find more information here, or here.
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Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD

A very interesting video about Arduino. This an open-source single-board microcontroller. The CanSat Kit is based on it. And we will use this board in our cansat.


Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD from gnd on Vimeo.

First High Resolution Global Topographic Lunar Map revealed

Despite the closeness between the Moon and the Earth, no global lunar map had been made until just two days ago.

On the 16th of November the dataset we had been waiting for since the Apollo era, according to Mark Robinson, Principal Investigator of the LROC, was revealed. The LROC (Lunar Recconnaissance Orbiter Camera) is the responsible for taking the pictures. This instrument belongs to a robotic spacecraft orbiting the Moon since 2009 with the aim of identifying safe landing sites, locating potential resources on the Moon, characterizing the radiation environment, and demonstrating new technology.

The LROC is made up of three cameras: two narrow and one wide angular one. A very similar camera to this last (WAC) is being used in another parallel programm around Mars.

The camera orbits at an average altitude of 50km and has a pixel scale of about 75 meters, so a WAC image swath is 70km wide around the ground-track, so it nearly covers the entire lunar surface in around one month. However we don't obtain the same images every month, but with tocks reflecting light under different conditions. This collection of stereo images are the ones that -after being treated- lead as to the final model. 69000 stereo images are need to get it. In spite of this huge amount of information, there are presistent shadows near the poles, but the spacecraft includes a laser altimeter (LOLA) that provides a precise topographic reconstruction since the spacecraft orbits converge at the poles therefore the "pole holes" can be filled.

The model is called GLD100 and covers 98,2% of the lunar surface and it was obtained this way:

The WAC stereo images arecompared one against another by pattern-matching a moving box of pixels until the best fit was found between two images with different viewing angles. Best fit pixel positions are combined with the LRO orbit position and the WAC viewing angles to define two 3D rays (lines of sight). The intersection point of these rays defines the location and the elevation of the point on the surface. Since the correlation box is bigger than 100 meters, surface details at the 100-meter scale are not fully resolved in a single stereo pair. However, each 100 meter square has an average of 26 stereo points within it , which helps to sharpen the elevation estimate. The accuracy of the elevations is estimated to be about 10 to 20 meters. Anyway, this map was built from the first year of stereo imaging, but there is already data corresponding to another year, what will make possible a more accurate model.

This project is related to our CanSat secondary mission, also consisting on creating a 3D map from previously treated images.

Via: NASA

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Which are the selected teams for the 2012 cansat competition?

The following winning teams will be joined by the winners of the Irish, Italian and Scottish national CanSat competitions.

• Yes, we Cansat! Technical Hight School for Information Thechology. Austria
• DJ AUXAL Tation, Sint-Pieterscollege Jette, Brussels, Belgium.
• Jecnaci, Secondary Technical School SPSE Jecna, Prague, Czech Republic.
• Stella Nova Viking Red One, Haderslev Katedralskole, Haderslev, Denmark.
• SatElite, Lycée Alfred Kastler, Talence, France.
• Icaromenippus 3D, 3rd General Lyceum of Mytilini, Strati Myrivili, Greece.
• The Flying Dutchcan, American International School of Rotterdam (AISR), The Netherlands.
• Navican, Heimdal Videregaende Skole, Trondheim, Norway.
• Azorean Shearwater, EBS Santa Maria, Vila do Porto (Azores), Portugal.
• Bolyai, Székely Mikó Theoretical Hight School, Saint George, Romania.
• DeLaCosa, Colegio Retamar, Pozuelo, Spain.

In adition, two back-up teams have been selected:

• ENFoRCE, Istituto Tecnico Industriale Enrico Fermi, Roma, Italy.
• Aspire, St. Paul's School, London, United Kingdom.

 

You can find more information in http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Education/SEMP9AHURTG_0.html

DARPA to introduce a new concept of satellite launch

Currently, there's only one way of launching a satellite: from the ground on a booster rocket. This is an expensive, long process, as it can take several weeks or even months to prepare the launchpad. Furthermore, an unforeseen weather change can scrap the whole preparation.

That's why the ALASA program (Airborne Launch Assist Space Access) by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) seeks to reduce cost, time and weather constraints.

“Current small satellite payloads can cost up to $30,000 per pound to launch, which is unsustainable over the long haul. Even when our increasingly capable small satellites are launched, they are obliged to go to orbits selected by the primary payload on current launchers, rather than to the orbits their designers and operators would prefer,” said Mitchell Burnside Clapp, DARPA program manager.

The vision is for an aircraft to carry the small satellite and its host-booster either inside the aircraft or externally. At the desired altitude and direction the aircraft releases the satellite and booster, which continue their climb into space. A key benefit of such a system is responsiveness to an immediate need. Within a day of being called up, a satellite launch mission could be conducted from a runway anywhere in the world. Another advantage is the flexibility of an aircraft to deliver a satellite into any desired orbit at any time.

Innovative technologies required for the ALASA program include propellant systems, possible in flight liquid oxygen production, flight controls and nozzle designs amongst others.

Among the significant limitations stand the restricted aircraft payload capacity and safety issues related to highly explosive chemicals.

Via: DARPA Press Release

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Saint Albert The Great: Patron of Science

On the occasion of the feast of Saint Albert The Great: Patron of Science, we have decided to include in the blog a short biography about this incredible saint and scientific.

Beginning of Saint Albert The Great's live
Saint Albert was born in Launingen, Bayern in the year 1193.
He studied aristotellic philosophy at the university of Padua, where he took his habits of the Saint Domingo of Guzmán's order. He taught in the most prestigious universities of the whole Europe and worked in many convents all over Germany.
In the university of Paris he translated, commented and clasified thosands of old books, mainly related to Aristoteles.

Saint Albert The Great and science
Saint Albert The Great changed completly the idea of experimentation. For him, experimentation consisted on obseving, describing and clasifying. Saint Albert The Great realized and enormous enciclopedic work, constructing with this the basis for his most famous pupil: Saint Tomas of Aquino.
He also worked on Botany and Alchemy, highlighted by the discovery of arsenic in 1250.
In the fields of Geography and Astronomy, he explained that Earth was an sphere.

Bishopric and death
Between 1259 and 1260, he was ordered bishop of Ratisbona, chagethat he would leave soon.
In 1263, The Pope Urbano IV accepted his resignation, letting him return to his old life in the Wurzburg´s community, teaching in Cologne.
He died at the age of 87.
He is buried in the crypt Saint Andrew´s church in Cologne

 Saint Albert The Great canonification
He was beatified in 1622.
In 1872 and 1927, the German bishops asked unsuccesfully for his canonization.
On December 16, 1931, The Pope Pius XI, Proclaimed Saint Albert The Great Doctor of the Churchwich is equivalent to the canonification.