Blog

The launch campaign is over! Too much happened to report it in full detail in a BLOG post. Therefore, we have set up a whole page for the launch week in Spain here. There, as well as on our Instagram, you can find everything about the launch week in full detail. What we can proudly say is that we won the award for the most professional team!

Yesterday we made last preparations before the launch event. For example, we have already designed spare parts and rehearsed presentations for the coming week. Our flight to Granada leaves in four hours - we are very excited and look forward to the coming week!

This week, our crowdfunding project went live via TaunaCrowd. Our goal: 2350 € in order to cover transportation costs and other technical expenses. For every amount over 10 €, TaunaCrowd will donate an additional 5 €. There will also be rewards from us for donating.

Feel free to check out the donation portal: https://www.taunacrowd.de/astraaether-europafinale

Over the last few weeks, we have been busy putting the improved design of the CanSat into practice and building it. The largest hurdles have now been overcome, but there are still small optimizations to be made to the reaction wheel and the integration of the NIR camera. This will be our highest priority for this week!

By a happy coincidence we met Mr. Guischard, the fire director of the local fire department, at a dance evening at the Karabey dance school. He generously organized a press conference for us at the Bad Homburg Fire Department, which we successfully held today. Present were various newspapers as well as our sponsor, Mr. Karabey, and potential new supporters. Before the press conference, we were given an explanation of the modern measurement technology used in disaster control. During the conference, we presented both the progress of the national competition and the upcoming challenges, highlighting in particular our secondary mission. Afterwards, we were able to answer further questions in a conversation.

We are pleased to have received media and financial support, as well as the possibility of closer cooperation with the fire department in our mission to identify fire hazards.

During this week, which was characterized by sleepless nights, our team was in Bremen. There we visited OHB, ArianeGroup, DLR and ZARM. Furthermore, presentations took place in which we presented ourselves and our CanSat to the jury. But the most important thing was the launch day on Wednesday. On this day our CanSat was launched in a rocket to a height of about 700 m. The following day the presentations about the evaluation of the data collected during the flight followed. Despite many obstacles, such as wobble contacts, which occurred during the week of the launch campaign, we were able to have a partially functioning satellite launched. Strong perseverance, teamwork and extraordinary presentations helped us to win first place. This means that we will now represent Germany in the European finals of the CanSat competition. 

Since there were so many ups and downs this week that we can't tell you all about in one post, here is more information and pictures.

On February 24 we had our sponsor meeting with eBiz Consulting and it was a great success. We were warmly welcomed and served a delicious lunch. It was a great opportunity to connect with the team. At the beginning of the meeting, we presented our interim status to the eBiz representatives. We detailed our progress and outlined the next steps for our project. We received positive feedback from eBiz. Finally, we answered questions that eBiz had during the meeting. These questions were mainly about the technical aspects of our project and the challenges we have in implementing it. By answering these questions, we were able to make sure we were all on the same page and that our project could move forward smoothly. Overall, the sponsor meeting with eBiz Consulting was a complete success. We would like to thank eBiz for the valuable support they have given us so far and for their continued collaboration on our project.

Today was the first of three days of filming with the "Sendung mit der Maus". We were accompanied during our drop test. In order to experimentally determine the ideal parachute size calculated beforehand, we threw our CanSat from the school tower. The weather was great and we all had a lot of fun. We are looking forward to the next shooting day in March to present the technology behind the satellite.

Today we visited the company The Vatrix in Frankfurt as part of the LemaS project. Over a period of three hours, we presented the various projects to each other. We are very enthusiastic about the VR and AR technology that The Vatrix markets in an educational context. Furthermore, we see a huge potential in their solutions to bring digital elements closer to younger students. Therefore, we believe a future collaboration is a good possibility. We would like to thank The Vatrix for giving us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and their VR and AR technology.

Today was the open day of our school. As part of our self-directed LemaS-MINT-AG, we offered fourth graders to solder a circuit of 3 LEDs and a battery, which was built into a self-printed smiley that could be taken home.  Furthermore, we informed young students and parents about KFG's offers to support gifted students and to participate in extracurricular competitions.

Today our first PCBs arrived, as planned in our schedule. Sadly, we made a mistake, which makes the pinholes too small and we have to design new PCBs.

Today we entered into a scientific exchange with Prof. Dr. Udelhoven. Mr. Udelhoven teaches at the University of Trier and is project leader of the German BrandSat mission. This is a real satellite mission that serves to determine forest fire hazards. Therefore he is the ideal contact person for our mission. We had the opportunity to exchange information about our satellite mission and the implementation of the BrandSat mission. The conference so far has been very educational and we hope that the exchange will continue to be so profitable over the next months. 

Many thanks for the support!

After we have devoted ourselves extensively to the search for sponsors, we are now happy to announce that Jimdo, eBiz Consulting, Tanzschule Karabey, kit-technologies, taunus investments and Hein+Gernhard have joined us as sponsors. This allows us to run this website, to develop our satellite without any financial problems and also to have parts of highest quality produced. 

Therefore a big thank you!

Today, part of our team was at the world's largest exhibition of 3D printing technologies. Over 800 companies presented their products and research. We tried to get in touch with as many of these companies as possible and tell them about our participation in the competition. We gained a lot from the conversations. In addition, we were able to expand our network. Whether this will result in long-term support with sponsors will emerge in the coming days. We hope for the best.

We already have the first prototype of what is probably our most difficult part of the competition: the Reaciton Wheel. Slight nudges and changes in the rotation are compensated. Some bugs still need to be fixed, otherwise it's a great start!