Last week, the StrathSat-R team had the Critical Design
Review (CDR) at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen. The team presented the design and the
status of the experiment and received feedback from experts from ESA, DLR and
SNSB. Passing this CDR was an important step of getting closer to the rocket
launch in March 2013. The StrathSat-R experiment will be on the REXUS 13 rocket
together with the other European Experiments: Polecats and Space Sailors, and
Muscats.
Furthermore, the pumps on the experiment got changed to
stronger ones due to the requirement that all the actuation needs to be
performed within 140 seconds of micro gravity time. The smaller pumps from
earlier in the project were selected because the assumption was made that they
would be suitable due to the low mass of the trapped air. Experiments showed
that the trapped air mass is indeed low but the volume is large. Therefore,
pumps with a higher mass flow rate should also be able to change the volume
changing capabilities.
The research on SAM is currently focused on creating a Matlab
code to simulate the actuation of the SAM membrane. At the moment, the research is carried out
parallel to attending the Space Studies Program (SSP) of the International
Space University (ISU) in Melbourne, Florida in conjunction with the Florida
Institute of Technology and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
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