Our Missions

Primary Mission

The primary mission will involve measuring the air temperature and air pressure before, during and after the CanSat's descent to the ground. The collected data will be transmitted by the provided radio to our team's ground station at least once a second, using a self-built antenna. This data will be used to calculate the altitude during the measurements. The altitude will be put in a height-against-time diagram to determine the speed. To establish a safe landing, we will secure a parachute onto the satellite. 

To achieve our objective for the primary mission, we will be using the BMP 280 module and might replace the temperature sensor with another, if we find that the temperature measurements are not accurate enough for our secondary mission. For the primary mission, an SD card for backup and the storage of data and a GPS tracker to find our satellite are useful. All the acquired data will be presented in a chart. 

Secondary Mission

Our secondary mission is to scan the air for greenhouse gas concentrations (such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) to measure the air temperature and to sample air. With this CanSat, we aim to see how far each country has come in upholding the agreements made in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. For this, we will need information about the greenhouse gas emissions before 2015 compared to now. We will also research if there is a correlation between the air temperature and the concentration of greenhouse gases. With the air sample, we would like to sketch an image of the different gasses (the ones we can not measure with our sensors) and the ratio between the different gasses and the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

The Paris Climate Agreement indicates that 195 countries are committed to working on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change itself. The aim of the agreement is to keep the total global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. To be precise, the focus is to limit the warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The long-term goal is to achieve climate neutrality by reducing emissions to 55% - 60%, compared to 2015, as of 2030. With our CanSat, we will be able to measure and follow the progress of not just our own, but also our partner countries. This mission is important because we see that global warming is a huge issue that can only be halted if every party involved holds their end of the deal.

We also find it very important that the Paris Agreement goals are reached, because after all, we are the new generation who has to live in this world. We do not want to do that in a place where everything falls apart. In this day and age, caring for the planet is not the main focus for a lot of people. But it should be. That's why we want to bring attention to this issue.