CanSat Launcher V2

From Dare

DARE was invited for the Technologie Education Conference 2006 by ESA in Braunschweich, Germany.. On STEC 2006 DARE planed to launch a CanSat Launcher. Unfortunately CanSat Launcher V1 crashed on the 28th of April and STEC 2006 began on the 9th of may. This let to heavy time pressure to redesign and build the next version of the CanSat Launcher.

The design

The launch

This rocket was launched on a military base near Braunschweig. Weather conditions good this day. Visibility was very good, cloud base high. Wind speed was 5-10 kts, blowing from the north.Ignition went well, the rocket left the tower at a normal velocity (estimated: 30 m/s).The rocket reached its simulated altitude of 1.2 km and probably went even higher. The telemetry of the rocket did not work as well as it had to, because of interference with the CanSat, but the status of the rocket could be extracted from the acoustic reproduction of the transmitted data. At apogee, from the telemetry of the launcher it could be deduced that the igniters, that had to initiate the deployment of the parachute and the release of the CanSat, were activated. After this, both the telemetry of the launcher and that of the CanSat went silent. No parachute deployment was observed, and the rocket must have crashed (although this was not seen). Only the nose cone has been recovered, the remainder of the rocket is found months later.