After a long discussion about all things that are to do the next four weeks and technical detail discussion we enjoy a beer at the “Bierstube” in Dresden.
[T=-290d] 15.07.2013 Beer break
[T=-301d] 04.07.2013 Team meeting
Weekly Teammeeting at the University Library. At our first group discussion after the CDR we improved our design and Student Experiment Document (SED) with the helpful critics of the review comitee. The review comitee consistes of experts from DLR, ESA, SSA and ESRANGE that helps the students to develop the experiment.
We discussed a timetable and the work order for electronics and mechanical parts. In addition we introduced our new teammember Nathanael in our experiment design. Nathanael is 21 years old and studies mechanical engineering in the 4th semester. He will help the mechanical team members with the inner chamber and the electronic box.
[T=-415d] 08.02.2013 Preliminary Design Review & Training Week
We have sucessfully performed our Preliminary Design Review and had a great training week at the DLR facility in Oberpfaffenhofen!
There we had the three represants of our team, Alexander Mager (Teamleader), Patrick Geigengack (Mechanical) and Alexander Schultze (Electronics & Software) presented the current design to experts from ESA, DLR and ESRANGEchecked our design in detail, gave us very useful advise and a showed us things we can improve.
During the whole week, we had workshops in a lot of interesting subjects, for instance on GPS, Flight Mechanics, Atmosphere, Communications and Testing & Verficiation, providing usefull skills for our future work. But also we had a lot of fun – there were plenty of excursions to discover Bavaria. We could take a look at the German Space Operation Center for the Columbus Module and satellites, as well as the upcoming generation of navigation satellites GALILEO, and the Robotics & Avionics lab, where you might ask yourself “Cool! But if that’s what you do for fun, what do you do for work then?”. Seems to be the same! 🙂
A highlight was the final event – which ended up to be the 5.th Anniversary of the Columbus Module Launch, giving us a wonderful opportunity to listen and talk to people like the Prof. Wittmann, the former Director of Space Operations and Astronaut or the Operation Manager T. Kuch from the German Space Operation Center (GSOC), and two actual ESA astronauts, Leópold Eyharts and Pedro Duque.
You may remember that Leopold Eyharts was the one who attached the Columbus Module to the ISS in 2008 during the STS-122 mission. But – he also was the one who attached the EuTEF experiment module to the space station, which first flew our FIPEX-sensors to space to measure atomic oxygen in a high temporal resolution for the very first time!
(A. Schultze)
(A. Schultze)
[T=-428d] 21.01.2013 Preliminary Definition finished
As today, the Preliminary Definition (PD) of the experiment has been finished. Many major decisions have been made, like the position of the sensors, the latch and the development of the electronic circuitry. This design will now be evaluated in Oberpfaffenhofen at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) by experts in the next week!
