Critical Design Review in Münich!
A heartfelt greeting to everyone reading this!😊 My name is Diyar Ghazi and I am a member of the mechanical division where I mainly work on the recovery system, which is just a cooler sentence for “get our probe back in one piece”-system.
This week's blog post will be about the Critical Design Review (CDR) which was hosted in Oberpfaffenhofen (yeah, try reading that fast, I dare you) at DLR which is near the city of Münich, Germany. The CDR is where we showcase our final design of our experiment to a panel of experts. During the CDR, we will have a short presentation of our experiment design and after a panel of experts will ask questions to each division of our team
Our journey began the 18th of June in Kiruna, where we started our flights early in the morning (all in all, we hade to change flights twice) toward Münich. We arrived to the hotel late, so we went out and had a delicious meal and went to bed in order to be ready for the activities the coming day.
The following day, after eating breakfast, we made our way to DLR, also known as German Aerospace Center, which is a really cool place. We got the chance to see German Space Operations Center (GSOC), where we got to see a copy of the Columbus module! (note: The Columbus module is a part on the International Space Station)
This was also the place we had our seminars and sessions, such as Ask an expert session (it’s kinda self-explanatory what we did on that session, right?).
We also attended a seminar where one of the REXUS experts talked about Environmental Testing. After the seminar we had a chance to see the command center for the Columbus module, which was really cool.
When all the seminars and sessions were done it was time for an adventure. All of the REXUS teams went on a hike, where the destination was a beautiful monastery. Of course, we visited a beautiful restaurant situated next to the monastery, where we had an amazing dinner. A perfect ending to the day.
REXUS hike.
The following morning we made our final preparations for the presentation, and the barrage of questions that would follow the presentation. To be honest, at that time we all felt more concerned with the questions that would follow the presentation. We did a couple of runs of our presentation, until we were happy with the result. Of course, all the hours of practice bore fruit - the presentation went smoothly.
As for the questions, the panel of experts were mainly focused on the part of the experiment that also has the highest chance of destroying the whole REXUS rocket, namely the mechanical structure and the pneumatic system. As BESPIN has pressurized tanks, we need to do extensive testing on them and our pneumatic system, or atleast have it tested by professionals to make sure that the risks are minimal. And for a good reason too - when you think about the REXUS rocket being blasted to pieces, effectively ruining several other experiments as well, you kinda realize that their worries are justified. After our CDR there was no time to spare - the Interface Discussion had already begun. During this seminar, the experts briefly explained what each experiment was supposed to do, and what kind of impact they may have on other experiments. After the seminar it was time to go back to the hotel.
Towards the night we joined up with some other REXUS teams and went for pizza to celebrate completing the CDR. The pizza was, to my surprise, probably one of the best I’ve had. All in all, we had a huge feast and a great time.
To summarize this week in this blog post is not possible, and I’m sure I’ve still left a lot of important parts out. But out of fear of making this post too far ( yeah I know, it already is… :D ) I feel that it is time for me to say thank you for reading and if you have any questions about the CDR, don't hesitate to ask, I’ll be more than happy to answer!
I'll post some more pictures from our trip below. Enjoy!
