Antariksha Labs Bangalore antarikshalabs.in : Annual BalloonSat Competition 2013-14

Name of the Organisation : Antariksha Labs (antarikshalabs.in)
Name of the Competition : Annual BalloonSat Competition 2013-14
Location : Bangalore

Website : http://antarikshalabs.in/
Competition : antarikshalabs.in/balloonsat-competition

Annual BalloonSat Competition 2013-14 :
BalloonSat, also known as “near space satellites”, are fun, inexpensive, and increasingly popular tools to put experiments in a near-space environment. We attach payloads (containers holding experiments) along with a ham radio, GPS tracker, radar reflector, and parachute to a latex balloon filled with helium. As the balloon rises through the air, the atmospheric pressure drops and the balloon expands. At a certain point in the stratosphere, the balloon can no longer stretch and pops! As it falls back to Earth, the parachute deploys. Ham radio operators track the balloon as it descends to Earth. After continuously following the balloon’s trajectory with tracking equipment, the chase teams pinpoint the balloon’s final landing destination.

The BalloonSat provides an affordable way to acquire the students with the basic knowledge to many challenges in building a satellite. Students will be able to design and build a small electronic payload. The BalloonSat is launched and ejected from a balloon. By the use of a parachute, the BalloonSat slowly descends back to earth performing its mission while transmitting telemetry. Post launch and recovery data acquisition will allow the students to analyze the cause of success and/or failure.

A BalloonSat competition offers the opportunity to university students to have a first experience of a real space mission starting with design, through integration, testing, launching, data analysis and presentation of results. It is also a good platform for developing skills, both general (e.g. scientific enquiry, technical design, data analysis and presentation, teamwork) and practical (e.g. soldering, building electronics, software programming, testing).

About the Competition :
This annual competition is open to teams from universities and colleges. Teams must design and build a space-type system, matching necessary design and performance specifications listed in the competition guide. At the end of the school year, BalloonSat teams from around the world compete to determine the winners. Most space-related competitions are paper design competitions. BalloonSat on the other hand, gives students the opportunity to be involved with the end to end life cycle of a complex engineering project. From conceptual design, through integration and test, actual operation of the system and concluding with a post mission summary and debrief.

The mission is to launch a BalloonSat, a model satellite system, with a module containing the payload comprising of various experiments planned by the students.

The BalloonSat consists of two parts :
The launcher i.e the helium filled balloon and the lander i.e the structure with payload. The BalloonSat will be deployed from the launcher balloon at an altitude of about 30+ km (100,000 feet). During the course of action, the planned objective would be doing its work like measuring radiation level, taking snaps of outer space, earth observation, gases concentration measurements and many other selectable options. Once released from the launcher, the BalloonSat will descend between 20 to 25 meters per second using any type of descent control system or device like the parachute.

At an altitude of 200 meters, BalloonSat will reduce the descent rate to within 2 and 5 meters per second with the use of a secondary descent system and start transmitting the secondary beacon signal for tracking. Tracking would be done the entire duration of flight and the students would be on the hunt to track it right from launch and follow the path. Upon landing the lander has to transmit high intensity buzzing sound for easy locating. The telemetry data has be stored on-board for post processing in the event of a likely communication failure. Teams must build their own ground station. Telemetry from the ballonsat must be displayed, in real-time, on the team-developed ground control station. This event is extracted from the entire cycle of a satellite system and is going to craze each and every student as it involves every stream of science in it, a true multi-disciplinary event.

This competition relates to a mix of Balloonsat and Cansat events which has been organized in other places like USA and Europe. Look into resources for basic idea of these competitions. The first leg of this competition i.e. abstract submission comprises design of special payload system which you plan to launch and the idea of entire integrated module like On Board Computer & Software development,Telemetry, GPS Tracking,Command & Data Handling, Ground station, ADCS, Housekeeping & Descent Control, Power Unit & Circuitry, Structure & payload health unit, System integration e.t.c. So divide your team department in such manner and start innovating.

Intent for Participation :
Please fill in the details below if you have formed a team and willing to participate in the Annual BalloonSat Competition to be held in May,2014.

Register Here

Abstract Submission Deadline : 1st December, 2013.

Download Brochure Here https://www.indianjobtalks.in/uploads/3788-eventqualifyingrulebook-balloonsatcompetition2013-14updt02.pdf

For further details, kindly contact :
Antariksha Labs
Bangalore, India
Tel : +91-9483054162 / +91-8748997512
Email : balloonsat@antarikshalabs.in
info@antarikshalabs.in