The M-BEAM experiment was awarded at the international I-SWEEEP Contest for pupils all over the world by the silver medal in the category Engineering. Therfore Clemens Mattersdorfer spend one week in Houston to compete against over 270 finalist projects and got honored with the second place.
follow the link to see the Award Ceremony!
Watch the FOCUS team livestream!!
http://www.livestream.com/focus_rexus
The Countdown will start at 09:00 a.m. !
Life Stream from Radar Hill:
http://www.ssc.se/www2/axis/cam01e.html
9:33 MBEAM POWER ON SUCCESSFUL
9:34 MBEAM SOE RECEIVED SUCCESSFUL
MBEAM MOTOR SPINNING
9:35 MBEAM SOE OFF
MBEAM SOE OFF CONFIRMED
MBEAM MOTOR OFF
AMBIENT TEMPERATURE IN MODULE: 8°C
TEMPERATURE BOTTOM BEARING: 12°C
TEMPERATURE TOP BEARING: 13°C
9:48 RADIO SILENCE CONFIRMED IN LAUNCHING AREA
9:50 HELICOPTER FOR RECOVERY ARRIVED AT ESRANGE
t+10 min : M-BEAM was successfull!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Images and Vids come next…. =D
On day 8 we had our first launch!
It was REXUS 9 which was launched our rocket will be launched on Wednesday 23th February!
Then at 13:40 on Tuesday 22th February 2011….
REXUS 9 was launched – The first rocket launch for the M-BEAM Team!!!
This was not the only amazing thing we experienced… we also saw our rocket fully assembled!!! We even were allowed to take photos of it…
This is our rocket! Containing M-BEAM! This rocket is hot and will be shot into space tomorrow!
This day we had the daily morning meeting and after we did a test countdown with the REXUS 9 teams. The REXUS 10 guys were allowed to watch this countdown at the Scientific Center.
At the scientific center the people monitoring the ground supports have to be in there during launch.
Also the REXUS 10 payload was assembled that day. M-BEAM is assembled now. The only thing which was missing then was the motor!
As usual the day started with the daily morning meeting.
The REXUS 9 Teams had the day off but REXUS 10 (our rocket) Teams had to work. All experiments were assembled. It took nearly the whole day to do that. In the late afternoon the assembly was done.
We had one signal check to prove that the connection is alright. M-BEAM performed perfectly once more!
Day 4 started with the daily morning meeting. This day we learned the Swedish word lagom which means moderate.
The next thing was to go to the church where we performed three more bench tests. It took us until lunch for them but M-BEAM performed well! Everything was working. The downlink data we got from our experiment was perfect and the ground support, the computer receiving the data, did its job perfectly.
And we invented our new mascot M-Banda! It is made out of our ground support program and the computer’s background!
After lunch we moved out the experiments to the big hall in the church. Before that we had the experiments in the block house, a room next to the hall. At the hall the rocket was not connected directly to our Ground Support but via a wireless connection. This connection is our communication point from the rocket during flight to our ground support. At this point of testing all ground stations had to be carried to the Scientific Center. This is the room where the ground station is placed during launch to observe the behavior of the experiment.
Now we were ready for a FLIGHT SIMULATION! As the name already contains the flight simulation is a simulation about the real flight. All signals will be delivered to the experiments, all fire cutters and ejection modules will be started and the down-linked data is via the wireless connection.
The time line for M-BEAM is set up as follows:
The start of the flight simulation started. Everything was alright. M-BEAM sent data.
LO signal delivered. M-BEAM recognized it!
SOE signal activated. Motor started spinning and sent the right data.
SOE signal deactivated. Motor stopped spinning and sent right data.
Power OFF. M-BEAM stopped sending data.
Everything went perfect at the flight simulation for M-BEAM!
This day was very successful. In all tests M-BEAM performed perfectly! Everything went alright.
The M-BEAM Team is looking forward to the launch on February 24th and hopes for all other REXUS 10 Teams the best!
=D
The night was pretty short. There were only 4 hours to sleep for the M-BEAM team since we worked late on the experiment.
The day started with the breakfast and then the daily morning meeting. After that we went to the church to check M-BEAM. Yesterday the experiment worked well but we wanted to check whether it was still working.
First we did a dry test with the REXUS Service Module Simulator to check if the PIC is still working, and also to check if there is too much data drop out in the downlink. The test went well and everything was OK. There was only one problem, namely the USB to serial adapter wasn’t working properly but we were able to solve the problem within a few minutes.
After having tested different things like turning on signals, we wanted to do an individual hot run with our experiment and the simulator.
The timetable of the hot run for M-BEAM is like follows:
The countdown starts at -10 minutes to Lift Off.
At 0s the lift off signal is provided.
At +80s the SOE signal is activated indicating the reaching of microgravity.
At +210s the SOE signal is deactivated indicating the rocket is back in the earth’s atmosphere
The hot run was going very well; the data dropout rate was below one percent, which is a very good value. We were ready to test all experiments together. Our experiment was connected to all the other ones and the REXUS Service Module. The timeline is the same as stated above. When the SOE signal for our experiment was activated, we were all like ‘Hopefully nothing gets damaged!’ but it all went well, the motor was spinning properly, and everything worked the way it supposed to do.
But this was not the final test… All in all ten tests are scheduled, to get the trust into the system back’ as Olle would say it.
So the focus today was on testing all experiments, there were 6 hot run tests with all experiments and everything was working very well! M-BEAM is also going very well, there were no errors occurring today, and we are ready for further tests and finally the Hot Countdown, at which the rocket is launched.
Day 2 started at 8:30 a.m. The first thing was the daily meeting with all teams and experts to discuss the schedule for today. After that we went to the so-called Church. It’s a building were our experiments are placed for now.
First of all we connected our experiment with our self-made REXUS Service Module Simulator to go on with further tests. Since we have managed the problem with the CRC yesterday, today a new error occurred. The down-link data was corrupted fatally and it only occurred when the experiment’s motor was spinning. We tried to solve the problem until lunch at noon but we did not find the error.
After lunch we continued solving the problem and then… the microcontroller broke down!
It was not possible to program it anymore. We had to change it which took us two hours. We had to dis
assemble the experiment to get the damaged microcontroller out and to put the new one in. The new microcontroller did not have drill holes, so we had to drill them before putting in it. Having done all this we tried to program it and it worked.
We connected MBEAM to the REXUS Service Module Simulator to do one more test. The next error occurred. It was possible to program the new microcontroller but th
e program itself did not work right. Our nerves were raw.
After trying several program devices it worked finally. But the problem with the CRC was still not solved.
After all… At 10:23 p.m. …
FINALLY IT DID ITS JOB!
Now the experiment is ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be connected to the REXUS Service Module for the REXUS 10 rocket, like all the other experiments and tests will be performed to check whether everything is working alright.
The MBEAM team is prepared and is looking forward to the tests tomorrow!
The M-BEAM team arrived at 1:30 a.m. today. After sleeping about 5 hours we got up more or less well rested. The day started with some presentations, like Safety at Esrange.
We had to solve one problem with the CRC of our experiment and it has been solved already.
The estimated launch day for REXUS 10 is February, 24th.
For a livestream visit: http://www.livestream.com/rexusdit
