About Us

LaunchPad SJCE, is the collegiate Can-Satellite Building Team of JSS Science and Technology University (formerly known as Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering), Mysuru, and was found in August 2018 by Kevin Tom and Tonmoy Kundu, two of the members of the initial first team for the 2018-19 competition . It consists of highly passionate and skilled aero-modeling and aerospace students from different branches, who have collaborated to design and fabricate a cansat and to compete with other teams from all around the globe, in the Annual International CanSat Competition, held in the month of June each year in U.S.A.

The development of the CanSat is almost a year long process including mechanical design, electronics design, PDR, CDR, manufacturing, assembly, integration and testing. For the team to work effectively and to accelerate the development, the team is divided into two sub divisions :-

• Electronics and Software team

• Mechanical team

The team puts around 5000+ man hours for the development of the CanSat.

Founders of the Team

About the CanSat Competition

The CanSat Competition is organized by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and is sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, NASA Goddard, Tarleton State University, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Praxis Incorporated, Siemens, Kratos ISI, Lockheed Martin and SolidWorks. It is a real‐world design challenge, taking participants through the system engineering process of breaking down requirements and exposing participants to the nuances of conceptual design, manufacturing, system integration/test, and flight demonstration of a ‘CanSat’. A ‘CanSat’ is a simulation of a real satellite, integrated within the volume and shape as small as that of a soft drink can. The challenge is to fit all the major subsystems found in a satellite, such as power, sensors and a communication system, into this minimal volume. The CanSat is then launched to an altitude of few hundreds of meter to a kilometer by a sounding rocket and its mission begins: to carry out a scientific experiment and achieve a safe landing.

It is a design-build-fly competition that provides teams with an opportunity to experience the design life-cycle of an aerospace system. The CanSat competition is designed to reflect a typical aerospace program on a small scale and includes all aspects of an aerospace program from the preliminary design review to post mission review. The mission and its requirements are designed to reflect various aspects of real world missions including telemetry requirements, communications, and autonomous operations. Each team is scored throughout the competition on real-world deliverables such as schedules, design review presentations, and demonstration flights. The competition is held in five stages, only on completion of all of which, the teams will receive certificates of accomplishment and be considered for awards; the five stages are namely :-

1. STAGE 1 : Application phase - Teams must submit an application and a $100 competition fee that is non-refundable. The fee is used to offset the cost of rocket motors and other materials.

2. STAGE 2: Preliminary design - Teams are to develop designs, prototype, test concepts and generate a preliminary design review (PDR) slide package using the provided template. This PDR (in PDF format) has to be submitted on the pre-mentioned date and the same has to be presented via telecon. After PDR, a total of 40 teams will be shortlisted and will be invited to the competition.

3. STAGE 3: Critical design - Phase three is the critical design. Teams will finalize their design and start ordering components, manufacturing parts, test subsystems and start developing the flight unit. Teams will generate a critical design review (CDR) slide package in PDF format using the provided template, which has to be submitted on the pre-mentioned date and presented via telecon.

4. STAGE 4: Launch weekend - Teams will be scheduled to present their completed CanSat for flight readiness review(FRR) which must be completed in 30 minutes. The CanSat must be ready to launch at this time. It must be completely assembled and operational. Each team will be scored during the flight readiness review. The very next day, the teams will perform final preparations and turn in their CanSats by 12:00 hours local time, after which the CanSats will be launched in sounding rockets.

5. STAGE 5: Post Flight Review (PFR) - Post Flight Review is a 15 minute presentation of the flight results and 5 minutes for questions. Awards will be presented at the end of the post Flight Reviews.