METUSAT team ranked 4thamongst 59 international teams in the annual model satellite design and development competition, CanSat, which was organized by American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and American Astronautical Society and held at Burkett, Texas in 12-14 June 2015. http://www.cansatcompetition.com/winners.html
CANSAT Competition: The American Astronautical Society (AAS) and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) organized an annual student design-build-launch competition for space-related topics. The 2015 mission simulated a Science Vehicle traveling through a planetary atmosphere sampling the atmospheric composition during descent. Mission objectives were
- to collect and store pressure, temperature, and altitude data on board,
- to transmit the data to the ground station,
- to record a stabilized video of the ground and
- to return a sensitive sample, an egg in the competition case, without breaking it while landing on the ground.
using a CanSat which was launched to 700 meters altitude. Later, CanSat had to automatically deploy a Science Vehicle module, which makes use of passive autogyro capability, at a specific altitude. All the mission objectives were achieved successfully except the video could not be recovered since the Science Vehicle unluckily landed on a pond for the first time in competition’s history.
METUSAT was advised by Prof. Dr. Ozan TEKINALP (Aerospace Engineering Dept.) and Prof. Dr. Sencer KOC (Electrical and Electronics Engineering Dept.) as well as mentored by METU alumni Farid GULMAMMADOV (EEE‘04) and Burak YAĞLIOĞLU (AEE’08) from TUBITAK UZAY. The team was composed of students from the Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical & Electronics Engineering departments.
Ömer Ataş (Team Leader) (AE)
Baran Bodur (EE)
Barış Duru (EE)
Münire Gülay Şenol (AE)
Waheedullah Taj (AE)
Efe Camcı (AE)
Halil İbrahim Uğurlu (EE)
Doğa Veske (EE)
Burak Yağlıoğlu (AE)
Doğa Yücalan (EE)
Hikmat Piki Gasımzade (ME)
The EEE team conducted the work under STAR program with guidance of Prof. Sencer Koç
METUSAT sponsors were ROKETSAN, TAI, STM AŞ. and TÜBİTAK UZAY.