Electronic components getting built and validated

The Suaineadh team members at KTH in Stockholm are working hard to build and validate the electronic components in order to ship them to Glasgow before the Interim Progress Review (IPR) on the 2nd of September in Glasgow. The integration of the electronics in the structure will happen one week before the IPR in the so called Integration Week. The fabrication of the Power Distribution Board (PDB) has been finished today, first test show that the PBP works well. PDB on both pictures; left for CHAD (Central Hub And Daughter sections), right for DSM (Data Storage Module)

The work on Suaineadh is progressing as scheduled, the manufacturing of CHAD is almost complete and also the electronics are shipped out from Stockholm to Glasgow. Fredrik Rogberg from KTH spend the last month at the University of Glasgow designing the antennas for the wireless connection between CHAD and the REXUS rocket. Last Friday Fredrik gave a compehensive presentation on the antenna design at the University of Strathclyde.

Suaineadh passed their CDR

The Suaineadh team is at the DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen at the moment for the Critical Design Review (CDR). Malcolm, Adam, Jerker and Thomas arrived in Munich on Monday morning at lovely sunny weather. The Suaineadh spend the whole afternoon and evening to prepare for the Suaineadh’s CDR presentation the next day. On Wednesday at 10:45am we had our presentation and it went quite well. Our team received a lot of good comments on the SED and experiment design. Just a few minor improvements were suggested for Suaineadh at the CDR. In the afternoon all REXUS 12 teams had a discussion about interfaces and possible interferences between the different experiments. At the REXUS CDR dinner in the evening, the Suaineadh team won the 3^rd place in the REXUS User Manual Pub Quiz, woohoo J. We all got GSOC(ks) as a price. This morning we had some more presentation on pre- and post-delivery testing and an ask-the-expert session. At the moment the whole team is sitting together to discuss some of the minor issues that came up during the CDR which still need to be solved.

Suaineadh at the Science Festival in Glasgow

Just to report on the huge success of the Suaineadh experiment on this years Glasgow Science Festival. Andrew, John and Malcolm were on hand to display the experiment, including the prototype of CHAD and the Magic Hat ejection barrel which looked pretty impressive!! It was a long but fun day of talking to lots of people who seemed genuinely fascinated (even including the kids) with the work we are doing and all are looking forward to hearing of the success of the mission on BBC News next March!!!! We would just like to thank Debbie from the Science Festival for inviting us to show our work and also to everybody who came to see our display!!!

Fabrication, Tests and SED v2.0

The Suaineadh Team is very busy these days with all kinds of different things. The mechanical and electronic design is almost complete and manufacturing just began. In the picture to the left, the Central Hub and Daughter (CHAD) Section can be seen in the Magic Hat that got sent from ESRANGE a few weeks ago. The Magic Hat serves as a barrel from which the experimental module will get shot out after nosecone separation. The first verification tests have been undertaken at the University of Glasgow, a picture of the linear actuator test can be seen in the picture to the left. All the other necessary tests got scheduled for summer after a test team meeting yesterday in Glasgow.

Furthermore, the new SED (Student Experiment Documentation) version, SED v2.0, is due to Thursday this week. The Suaineadh team is working hard to make it better then the Preliminary Design Review SED. We are on target to meet the deadline with time to spare.

The Critical Design Review (CDR) is coming up too, it will be held at the DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen (close to Munich, Germany). Malcolm McRobb, Adam Wujek, Jerker Skogby and Thomas Sinn are heading to Munich from the 7th till 10th of June.

Suaineadh in London for SET for Britain

This Sunday, a part of the Suaineadh team went to London to present the Suaineadh experiment at the House of Commons in the parliament. Malcolm and Thomas left Glasgow early to do some sight seeing and preparation before the presentation on Monday. On the day of the 'SET for Britain' we got a private tour of the Parliament with our MP Ann McKechin showing us the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Our poster presentation afterwards went quite well, we received quite some interest on the Suaineadh experiment. The event was great to get an overview over the research undertaken in Britain at the moment. During the two hours poster presentation, the Suaineadh team took the chance to network with the other researchers.

We used to rest of the day to do some more sightseeing. We even saw the unveiling of the London 2012 countdown clock (500 days to go). Overall it was a succesful trip that brought us a lot of new ideas :)

Suaineadh in the Strathclyde Engineering News

The Suaineadh experiment made it into this month issue (March 2011) of the Starthclyde Engineering News: http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/faculties/engineering/newsletter/2011/Faculty_Newsletter_-_March_2011.html

The Suaineadh experiment is also introduced on the homepage of the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory: http://www.strath.ac.uk/space/newsevents/

Now its time to prepare for our poster presentation for the SET for Britain in London on Monday :)