REXUS-BESPIN

Hi hi hi!

My name is Elin and I am head of the electrical division of team BESPIN. Since we are the smallest engineering department in our team (only three members) I am not only responsible for distrubuting tasks to my division members but also for the safety, thermal and sensor systems. This basically means that I

- try to find solutions so that our pyrotechnical devices does not fire when we don't want them to

- make sure that the temperatures surrounding the electrical components before, during and after flight are within the allowed range

- find sensors that will provide important data for the post-flight analysis
A lot of the tasks that we are doing are done in collaboration with either the mechanical team or software team, so there is plenty of teamwork between the different divisions in BESPIN.

 

Just as Nick and Cassidy mentioned in the previous blog posts, we are still in the design phase of the project. This means that the electrical division members are researching components, making a lot of schematics and doing simulations all over the place. Right at this moment I am trying to get through the majority of the 2126 pages long data sheet for our microcontroller to figure out how to connect all our components to it. This is an example of a task that may not be the funniest one I have ever had to do, but I will learn a lot about how a microcontroller works and how to understand data sheets. Since microcontrollers in general are so widely used, it may be great knowledge to have in the future.

 

The great thing about this project and the REXUS/BEXUS Programme is that you learn so so so much and you really have to understand all the components and how they work together on a deep level. Because you cannot take chances and hope for the best since a lot of the components are quite expensive and we need to be certain that it will work in the end, and not only in isolated tests done in the lab.

 

The next step for us in electrical is to finalize the design of the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) we are to print this summer. So everything has to be decided during the forthcoming days and then drawn in Eagle (software we are using to design the PCB) for the SED 2.0, which is due soon. So it's all in for us now for a couple of days, so I am sorry in advance friends and family for being M.I.A.