CanSat

We are Team Soton representing the University of Southampton at the annual CanSat competition.

The team consists of nine undergraduate students, eight from the Aeronautics & Astronautics department and one from the Electronics department. The competition challenges us to design, build and test a conceptual satellite, which involves producing comprehensive design reviews, meeting stringent requirements, conducting intensive trade studies, undertaking exhaustive testing and ultimately producing a working flight system for review and launch in Stephenville, Texas. The best 40 teams from around the world will be invited to take part in the launch weekend. The competition provides a rare opportunity for a student to gain complete experience of an end-to-end life cycle of a complex engineering project in the astronautics field.

Mission Objective: Build an autonomous satellite, consisting of a container and a payload section. The aim is to ensure that the probe can produce controlled descent from a 700 meter altitude using a parachute and an auto-gyro, all the while recording telemetry and transmitting it to a ground station (also developed by the team).

Current Status: We have recently completed and presented the Preliminary Design Review. Confirmation of results will be received by the 2nd of March. We are confident in the design that we have developed and are expecting a positive result. The presentation feedback described our design review as “excellent” and “very detailed”. The next deadline, the Critical Design Review, is on the 29th of March.

The Road to Texas: We must now re fine our design, produce and test 3 CanSat models (engineering, flight and backup) and prepare the team for the journey to the launch site. Therefore, we are currently searching for support and funding via our Hubbub page: Soton CanSat Hubbub

Thus far we have received generous contributions from Volante Global and the ESL Group, who’s sponsorships have been instrumental towards our project