Spinning QUad Ionospheric Deployer

SQUID in space has now been seen by over 100.000 people

Gustav — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:01:35 +0000

Okay we know, our blog has kind died since we presented our project at the ESA symposium last summer. But something which is still more then alive is our video “squid in space” however not in the version we uploaded it in, instead it is the version High Powered Rocket takes a GoPro Camera to Space. Must See!!!! uploaded by PaintSlinger99 which is popular. It essentially the same video but with another title. This video during the past days past over 100.000 viewer (100.182 when I looked). This is something well worth noticing so to celebrate why not take another look on that video?

Launch Campaign Video

Gustav — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:00:44 +0000

Finally the video from the launch campaign 6 months ago have been released on YouTube. We do never get tired of watching it so check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/squidkth

Last Day at ESA PAC Symposium

Gustav — Sat, 28 May 2011 10:34:50 +0000

After a wonderful week the last day of the symposium arrived much to early. The thursday began with presentations, as usual. Some really nice ones given by REXUS teams, and also one given by Mark from DLR regarding REXUS/BEXUS seen from a long term perspective, were held.

After the last presentation all conference participants went out to a vineyard, about 15 min from the center of Hyères, for the closing dinner. We first gathered in the garden where vine and snacks were served and everyone mingled around. We then went in to the dining hall to eat a nice four course dinner with. I must admit that I really liked the fish main course.

The dinner was over much to soon and the only thing that remained was to say goodbye to everyone. This however was very sad and a bit chaotic and some of us therefore decided to move on to a hotel bar. Here the night ended with that Mark was thrown in to the hotel pool.

We have really had a great week down in france with many friands. Sitting here at home it really does feel sad, not only for leaving the nice sunny weather behind, but mainly due to that we will miss all the friends we have made during our time in REXUS/BEXUS. No matter how much learnt, and what cool stuff have been experienced, the friends we have made during the program will always be the first thing thought of when thinking back on the time of REXUS/BEXUS.

Another Hard Day in the REXUS Programme

Gustav — Wed, 25 May 2011 23:53:53 +0000

Today started of a bit better then the day before considering the additional 75% of sleep. The morning was spent listening on different interesting presentations given at the symposium followed by the usual great lunch at the Casino. After lunch it was finally time for us to get some time to enjoy our surroundings. All participants were shipped out on the island of Porquerolles where the groups was divided. I and David joined some other REXUS/BEXUS students, Adam and Helen on a bike trip to the closest beach. Well at the beach we enjoyed the wonderful water of the Mediterranean, some ice creams at the beach and the lovely sun. Much to soon it was time to head back for the boat but we still had time for a beer before. Well back at the main land everything happened very quickly since there was a REXUS/BEXUS event planned immediately we did not get time enough to go home and shower which made the dress code very relaxed. This was not a problem though since everyone were in the same situation. Me and David goth our diplomas and then a group photo was taken. We then finally could make it back to the hotel for a shower before the evening continued with beers at the same bar as monday night. Tomorrow will be the last day of the symposium and will end with a vineyard dinner so we are looking forward to that.

Presentation and Tour of the City

Gustav — Tue, 24 May 2011 22:36:04 +0000

So after the very nice evening yesterday we did not get many hours of sleep until it was time to be on place for the days lectures. Today was actually the day of our own presentation which we performed at 9:20 this morning, we received some great comments after it so we assume it went well. There where also other teams presenting today like M-BEAM and CASS-E. After a day full of valuable conversations in the exhibition hall it was time for the tour of the city. The guide took us through the old town and showed us many nice views. It all ended up on the mountain where drinks and snacks were served. The day ended with dinner at the restaurant in old town where we had beers the first night. Now we´re getting to bed to catch up on some sleep.

First day of the ESA symposium

Gustav — Mon, 23 May 2011 23:37:45 +0000

Today was the first official day of the ESA symposium. We, me and David, started of with a short breakfast and then left for the symposium with the experiment with us. Since the experiment was wrapped in my clothes in my bag during the trip here a plastic bag had to do for the transportation to the symposium. Well att the symposium it started of with four and a half hours of loooong presentations covering the national reports of the states participating in the conference. At lunch a great three course meal was served but unfortunately someone had underestimated the time needed for everyone to eat so we were half an hour after schedule after lunch. The afternoon was spent watching some of the other REXUS teams presenting their results as well as the MARWEL team who are part of the upcoming BEXUS mission. We also had to spend some time preparing our selves for our presentation tomorrow. Last on the schedule for the day was a “Icebreaker” with great wine and some snacks. Of course the REXUS BEXUS teams were not satisfied but instead continued the night with beers at a bar…

Saint Troppez

Gustav — Sun, 22 May 2011 16:47:54 +0000

Today we used the morning to write on the article we´re presenting on tuesday and which in not yet ready. After 12 we decided to go with Peggy to Sain Troppez. It’s a one hour trip there with amazing looking roads among the hills. Well there we looked on the Yachts, the village and took a guided boat tour to get to see as much as possible during the three hours we had there. The weather was great but now when I´m writing this it is a thunder storm outside…

Tonight we are going to the first event of the symposium, enjoy the pictures!

Arrival to Hyères France

Gustav — Sun, 22 May 2011 08:22:57 +0000

Since this is the first blog post for quite a while I´ll just take some time to mention what we have been doing over the spring. As most of you already know we came home from launch late february and immediately started with the data analysis. Since most of us had some catch up to do in different courses and thesis works there have not been as much time for SQUID as there used to be. But we have been on a few outreach event (I´ll attach some pictures) and I and david were also at the RAIN team´s tow/drop test to help out.

So with that said, lets continue with what we are up to now. Early yesterday morning I, Gustav, and David took took us out to Arlanda airport to catch the plane towards Paris leaving at 6:50. Well in Paris, standing at the baggage belt, we hear a familiar voice, it turns out to be Paggy from the RAIN team who are also going to Hyères for the symposium.

Next task was to take us from Charles de Gaulle to Orly which turned out to be not as easy as it may sound. It ended up with tus waiting for one hour for the bus to take us there which makes us realize why you need so much time in order to get in between the airports. Well at Orly, after a short lunch, the travel continued to Hyères/Toulon where the sun and palm trees greeted us. To bad though that we once again ended up waiting one hour in order to take the bus from the aiport to the center of Hyères, if we just had know the beach was just around further down the street the waiting would have been much more pleasant.

The bus took us in to the center where the next adventure was to try to find the way to the hotel, after asking around and trying to understand the french (okay i admit I should know french after living in Belgium for six years but I don´t) we actually did find our way. After some rest we met up with Peggy again for dinner, well in town we met up with the SSC and SNSB personell who first took us to a plaza in old town for beers and then to a nice restaurant for dinner.

First SQUID post flight data analysis

Mario Valle — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:09:02 +0000

After the successful launch and recovery of the SQUID experiment there is still a huge amount of things to do. The experiment recorded a lot of data from the different sensors (gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers etc.) and now we have to analyze the data in order to understand how the system behaved. One of the interesting sensors onboard the FFU were the gyros, that give the angular rate on the three axis. During the deployment of the wire booms, due to the increase of the moment of inertia of the FFU, the spin rate (or angular rate along the z axis) would decrease, so by looking at the recorded data from the gyros we could have a good idea of how the wire booms have behaved, which is specially important as the FFU was lost from the field of view of the camera very soon.

From the gyro data (see figure) one can clearly see the slow down of the spin rate just after ejection along the z axis, while the angular rate along the x and y axis is very close to zero, meaning that the ejection was almost perfect. What one can see on the slow down period is that there is a sudden change of the slope of the spin rate curve. By comparing this curve to a dynamical model of the system we could see that the reason for this seems to be that one of the wire booms failed after deploying around 30 cm. This was of course not good, but it didnt have a big impact on the overall performance of the FFU as it keept on spinning stably.

At the end of the slow down sequence one can see that the curve becomes flat, which means that the other three of the spheres stopped deploying (as it was expected) and the FFU kept on spinning with the wire booms deployed. After this, the retraction sequence starts, and again one can see a slight slope change of the curve, which means that a second SCALE system failed during retraction. The objective of retracting the wire booms was only for preventing them to entangle with the parachute, but luckily this did not happen and therefore it was not a major failure on the system.

One can also see another interesting event on the plot. At the end of the retraction phase, the spin rate of the FFU should be very similar to the initial one, but as one can see this did not happen, as it seems that the spin rate is decreasing (as expected due to the decrease of the moment of inertia of the FFU), but then suddenly it starts spinning up again, and becomes unstable (one can see that the data from the gyros on the x and y axis starts becoming messy). It seems that this was because the FFU started “feeling” the atmosphere before expected. One of the curves is the dynamic pressure, which was derived from the data recorded by the Rexus service module, and as one can see, at the moment on which the FFU becomes unstable, the dynamic pressure starts increasing, meaning that aerodynamic effects start being noticeable.

There is still a huge amount of data to analyze carefully, so this task will keep us busy the next months. We will keep you informed about our progress!

EXPLORE rocket video

Gustav — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 07:58:17 +0000

I know that the blog during the last week have been very poorly updated and I´m deeply sorry for this. Some more detailed posts about the data processing are on their way but in the mean time I just wanted to tip you about the EXPLORE team´s video which they recorded during the launch of REXUS 9 which where launched the day before our rocket. The video is recorded from a camera which where mounted on the side of the payload so they have managed to capture some great shots of the launch.

Due to copyright issues on the music the above clip may not be available everywhere so for those of you who can´t see it there is another clip without music.