This is where the fun begins
Hello everyone, my name is Daniel and I'm a member of the software team.
So we survived the Critical Design Review (CDR) and now it is time to sit down and start working. We in the software team also got some feedback from the CDR, mainly we have to look at our different modes again and simplify them. However no bigger changes have to be done to the design of the code.
Up to this point we in the software team have designed the software by drawing different diagrams showing how the different modules will interact with each other and themselves. Now however the time has come to start coding! I have looked forward to this moment when we actually start writing code since the project started.
We will start by implementing three of the of the most critical modules, well this experiment is full of critical parts and things that have to trigger at the right time. But what is it all good for if we can't find the experiment later or have any data to analyse? So we will start by implementing the modules that does exactly that, the memory, GPS and IRIDIUM modules. The memory module will store the data from all the different sensors for later analysis, the GPS will keep track of where the experiment is and the IRIDIUM module will send down the telemetry data to the ground.
I will work on implementing the IRIDIUM module together with Terese. The IRIDIUM module basically works by sending commands to it and check the answer it sends back, something like this:
Software: “Heyy IRIDIUM wake up! We've just been ejected from a rocket at 80km altitude!”
IRIDIUM: “Just five more minutes….WHAT?!? Oh I am ready to send down information”
Software: “Could you please send down this data package? <data package>”
IRIDIUM: “Sure no worries mate! It will just take one minute”
One minute later:
Software: “Could you please send down this data package? <data package>”
IRIDIUM: “Sure no worries mate! It will just take one minute”
And so it goes until the flotation probe have landed and the battery runs out. Of course we have to write the code so it can deal with errors as well. After the code for these three modules are written we will start testing to see that everything is working as planned, then add more modules to the program. So exciting times are ahead!
If you have any questions about the software or the project in general just reach out to us on social media.
Until next time
Daniel Lindqvist