The Launch Day

Because of our somewhat lacking planning, we had a big time crunch to do the last few weeks. Even with members staying up beyond midnight, sadly, we didn't manage to finish the CanSat. So, in the car, we attempted to put the arms in place in the frame.

As one might have already thought about, assembling the CanSat for the first time at the Launch day did not go swimmingly. First, we only managed to put in 2 arms to a point where the frame could actually fit inside the hull. Then, we  couldn't put in the frame deep enough. So we completely abandoned it, and just tried to put all our sensors inside the hull. And when it seemed we had something, we noticed loose wires. In total, the power switch, BMP (sensor responsible for altitude) and a UV sensor had gotten loose. After some stressing fixing, we put everything back together. We plugged it in a computer to upload the final code, and then we saw a spark. A single spark. As you can imagine, this wasn't a nice thing to see. We had blown our entire 3.3 volt wire system in the Arduino, meaning the gas, infrared and BMP could not get powered. So, we just put that what worked in the CanSat, and prayed at least something would work

Then, it was time. Launching time. A chanted countdown with all CanSat teams and the DARE staff. Five, four, three, two one, launch. And then the rocket didn't go up. This is one of the worst situations possible. You have a possibly live rocket sitting there, and it has to be fixed, but could randomly decide to turn on it's thrusters, or fly off. Luckily, it was fixed, and after an hour of waiting, because our launch window had passed, we got to see the rocket take to the skies.

After the rocket took off, our antenna's followed the trajectory it was taking. We had gotten a back-up antenna from a previous team, and with 2 people aiming, and 4 people frantically looking for the CanSat in the sky, we were all on the edge. But there was no data. Some CanSats were seen high up in the air, by us and other teams, but nobody managed to follow them to the ground. In the end, none of the ten teams managed to pick up any data. We don't know why. The rocket was recovered, and the CanSats had been deployed. Maybe our Arduino had died with the sparks, maybe it was off, maybe it was the lead soldering alloy inside it interfering with the signal, or maybe it was something out of our control, but we have no measurements to show for the launch.

Now, after the launch, all we can do is go forward. In a couple weeks, the final report is due, and we have big plans. Our CanSat was not done, but we, our teachers, and the organisation all believe the design works in principle. So, we are doing something slightly insane. We are redesigning the entire frame of the CanSat, and rebuilding it from scratch. We hope to then either simulate a launch or drop it off a high place to get measurements and use those for our final paper, instead of making up a random data set and showing what we would have done with that.