After missing two buses this morning, the Suaineadh team decided to walk the 5.5km through the blustering snow to ESTEC (it took us roughly an hour with an Italian BEXUS team trailing us). The first day was mainly focused on welcome and orientation presentations. We're about to finalize our presentation tonight, lets hope for the best.
The Suaineadh Team arrived at Noordwijk without having to much trouble caused by snowy weather in Glasgow, Stockholm and Amsterdam. After a nice dinner at the hotel, the work on the presentation begins. We'll have our presentation on Thursday at 9:10am, the official Selection Workshop at ESTEC starts tomorrow at noon.
The Suaineadh experiment has been shortlisted for the REXUS 11/12 campaign and will be presented at the Selection Workshop between Tue 30 November and Thur 02 December 2010 at ESA's Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noorwijk, The Netherlands. The four team members that are selected to present Suaineadh are Thomas Sinn (University of Strathclyde, UK), Malcolm McRobb (University of Glasgow, UK), Jerker Skogby (KTH, Sweden) and Adam Wujek (KTH, Sweden).
The Suaineadh experiment has the purpose to prove the concept of deploying and stabilising a space web in micro-gravity by means of the centrifugal forces acting on the spinning assembly which is ejected from the nosecone of the REXUS rocket. Controlled web deployment and stabilisation will be achieved by an active control method. This new approach has the potential of drastically simplifying the design of a Furoshiki net while enhancing its stability. The experiment will provide an enormous scientific return on the behaviour of a centrifugally deployed and stabilised large structure in space. The experiment can be split into two distinct sections; the ejectable section (CHAD (Central Hub And Daughters)) and the data storage section (DAST (Data Acquisition and Storage)) onboard REXUS. The ejectable section (CHAD) carries out all mission operations, including web deployment and stabilisation. CHAD consists of the central hub, a square web (2m x 2m) and four corners masses (daughters) attached to the web. Prior to the deployment; the web and corner masses are wrapped around the central hub. The ejection of the system from the REXUS rocket occurs at an altitude of approximately 62 km. Three institutions (University of Strathclyde, University of Glasgow and KTH Royal Institute of Technology), with more than 15 students, are working together to achieve the goal of designing, manufacturing and testing of the whole Suaineadh experiment in order to successfully launch the experiment on board of REXUS 11/12.
