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Today is the final day before the regional competition. We began the day with a huge list of tasks to complete. We first gave a presentation to second years where we explained the competition and how our can works. This was done in order to spread the word of the competition and to prepare us for the inevitable presentation to the judges tomorrow. This was very beneficial for us, as we were able to get other peoples opinions on the presentation and incorporated answers into our presentation from the many questions we received.
Our next task was to revise the code and solder on the final two sensors. The coding was very painstaking as we had to learn a lot about software serials and digital sensors, due to our oxygen sensor. Through much trial and error, we eventually began to get readings from our sensor. The pressure values also seemed inaccurate. We began to fiddle we the code and eventually solved our problem - the code was structured wrong. We also had a soldering problem where the battery was soldered in wrong. After many hours of suffering, we finally got everything to work. We then did a final test of our parachute which is available to see on our twitter profile -> https://twitter.com/thegreencansat/status/973672238443614208 Nowadays, we use chemical acceleration to propel our spacecraft. Chemical Energy is converted to kinetic energy, allowing us to reach relatively high velocities, but not high enough. This system is not efficient enough to allow us to travel to distant exoplanets, stars, etc in a reasonable amount of time.
To combat this, we use photonic propulsion. To begin, we must build a a giant laser array and send it to space aboard a rocket. The giant laser array is powered by sunlight. It then converts the energy it receives to electromagnetic energy, taking the form of the laser. Light has a lot of force, which comes from its momentum. This can be demonstrated with solar sails, an already working mechanism which uses the suns energy directly to propel itself forward. Due to the principle of conservation of motion (the total momentum beforehand = the total momentum afterwards, provided no external forces act on the system), once the photons from the sun collide with the sail, the photons must decelerate and some of their momentum will be transferred to the spacecraft, propelling it forwards. The laser sail that we would have is much more efficient then a solar sail. Only so many photons will collide with a solar sail and it is not certain whereabouts they will strike. Our laser array will send a concentrated beam of photons at the sail, allowing for much greater efficiency and far, far greater velocities. (The sail would need to be very thin and have approximately the same mass as the satellite.) The principle used in the solar sail is what would decelerate our satellite. The star of the exoplanet that the satellite would be sent to will be used to slow down the sail, so that it does not collide with a planet at near light speed. This allow us to enter the planets atmosphere and carry out the main part of our mission. Such projects are already in the works. For example, the DE-STAR which are the main group focusing on this idea at this current moment in time. Such a system could have other beneficial uses such as diverting an asteroid that is on course to collide with earth or vaporisation of small space debris. |
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