Tag: ROACH2

ROACH2 Integration-week

ROACH2 Integration-week

ROACH2 Integration-week

Overview

The REXUS Integration Week took place at ZARM in Bremen from 9 to 13 December. During this week the experiment was assembled, subjected to vibration analysis on a vibration table and tested for compatibility during the bench test.

Monday

On Monday we packed the rest of our things and loaded the car. Afterwards we went on a long trip north. The arrival at the hotel in Bremen was in the evening.

Tuesday

Tuesday was completely dedicated to the assembly of the experiment.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we had actually planned our shaker test. Unfortunately we were not yet ready for it, so it was postponed to Thursday. So this day was also spent with assembling. In the evening there was a discussion whether our experiment should be moved to another rocket, because there were compatibility problems with two other experiments. So we sat down in the hotel in the evening and discussed the effects of these changes on our experiment. Our final conclusion was that this change would endanger our and other experiments due to vibrations.

After we had posted a picture of our rover in the club's chat, some memes came back, which we don't want to withhold here.

Thursday

In the morning we made last preparations before we went on the shaker in the late morning. After a few exciting minutes it was over. The inspection showed that we had some cracks in some parts. But all in all nothing bad and unexpected happened. In the afternoon we had some free time, where we waited for the third team on the rocket, before we had the benchtest in the evening. After one of the experiments had induced a wrong signal on the second one, the test was cancelled and postponed to Friday.

Friday

On Friday the Benchtest took place. At the Benchtest all experiments are set up together with the Service Module and the entire flight sequence is simulated. The goal is to find out if the experiments work and to make sure that the experiments do not influence each other. This test went quite smoothly, so we finished testing and packing at 11am and were ready to go home. We arrived back in Stuttgart late in the evening.

ROACH2 Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

ROACH2 Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

ROACH2 Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

Selection workshop in Bonn

The PDR (Preliminary Design Review) of our project ROACH2 took place on the 12th of February 2019 at the DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen as part of a Students Training Week.
ROACH2 is like its predecessor mission ROACH part of the REXUS/BEXUS program. A program sponsord by the German and Swedish space agencies (DLR and SNSA) to give students the opportunity to develop experiments launched onboard high altitude rockets or balloons.
ROACH2 is a rover which is supposed to drive a parcours in zero gravity only supported by electroadhesion on the inside of a REXUS rocket.

On the first day of Students Training Week the DLR and SNSA as well as ESA were introduced to us. We also got information on the REXUS Service System and on how to design our experiment for implementation. In the evening we had the chance to meet the other teams.
Throughout the week we had workshops about subjects like thermal design, software development, power systems, flight requirements, flight safety and system engineering as well as information about our next steps, as wel as the PDRs, 20 minute presentations followed by questions by the review board. They gave us some useful tips on things we need to improve.
The opportunity to question experts about our challenges that we encountered was really valuable to us. We were also informed on which rocket our experiment would be launched.
The last evening ended with a joint visit to the "Flugwerft Schleißheim".