History of CanSat

In 1998 the first "University Space System Symposium" had place in Hawaii. Here 50 students from different universities held a meeting and one professor of the University of Stanford, called Bob Twiggs, propose the idea of the nano-satellite, a nano-satellite is basically a satellite with the shape of a soda can. The main objective of the nano-satellite project was to launch a rocket with 3 nano-satelites inside it, the project begun in 1999 under the name of ARLISS.

In 2000 the project the missions of the nano-satellites were defined as calculating the opening of a landing system using data provided by the barometer or making use of a differential GPS and in 2001 the objectives turn even more complex by adding a extra mission that was to land the nano-satellite in a particular place. It was not until 2003 when the University of Tokyo placed 2 nano-satellites that where quite bigger than a can and were called CubeSats. 

The concept of CanSat was created in 2010 by the ESA and following the objectives that Bob Twiggs propose at Hawaii in 1998, they carry an educational competition in which we use nano-satellites to fulfill a primary objective proposed by ESA and a personal secondary objective of our election.

Artist rendition of a CubeSat orbiting around the Earth

© University of Montana

CanSat Competitions

The European CanSat competitions have been held since 2010, but it's not something just for a small amount of people. CanSat competitions are well spread around many countries. Yearly national competitions are held yearly among teams formed by young people in countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain and many others.

However this competition doesn't only take place in Europe. The American Astronautical Society and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics have organized an annual competition. This competition includes a complex engineering project in which students will be involved. The range of ages covers from college to university students and it assures that its participants will experience how projects in real life work and will be able to develop one and make it true by themselves.

If you are willing to have fun and learn while you get prepared for a real life project we encourage you, no matter where you are, to join a CanSat team and get ready to design, program and build a real operative satellite, but as it name says, IN A CAN!

What else do you want? Don't let your opportunity slip away!

 
  

Some of the logos of national CanSat competitions

© Cansats In Europe, ESA

Rosetta mission

Our team name is RosettaCan, which not only come from the famous Rosetta Stone. this means that it looks like it hasn't been given the importance that it has, so I am going to introduce it.

Rosetta is a space robotics project built and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA). With the help of Philae, its lander module, Rosetta is performing a detailed study of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, where is taking as much as possible information. It has also done a flyby of the planet Mars and asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Šteins before the rendezvous on 67P.

The spacecraft consists of the Rosetta orbiter, which is made up of 12 instruments, and also the Philae lander, with another nine additional instruments, which are the ones that collect the data from the comet. The Rosetta mission will orbit 67P for 17 months, at this day the spacecraft have been 202 days in orbit with it. And also is pretty far away from the earth, just behind Mars.

Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004 on an Ariane 5 rocket and reached the comet on 6 August 2014, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, and the one that is suppose to collect more data from it than any before.
On 12 November 2014 the mission performed the first soft landing on a comet and returned data from the surface.

We will get through a detailed explaination of Philae and news about Rosetta Mission will be also posted.

Here's one of the last images that we currently have of Rosetta.

• Image obtained on 18 February from a distance of 198 km
© ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0