UPES Team Astral secures 2nd All-India rank in CanSat 2020

CanSat is an annual competition open to teams from universities and colleges around the world. Teams must be able to design and build a space-type system, following the approved competition guide, and then compete against each other via an actual rocket launch to determine the winners

The American Astronautical Society (AAS) organised an annual student design-build-launch competition for space-related topics. Participants had to structure an end-to-end life cycle of a complex engineering project which included conceptual design, integration and test, actual operation of the system, along with a post-mission summary and debrief. UPES Team Astral stood second nationally  and seventh globally. 

The team comprised 19 students –  Sarvesh Kumar Yadav, Dushyant Singh, Lawanya Awasthi, Adwait, Harsh Kongre, Shreyas, Shraddha Konwar, Kumar Milton, Shreyash, Sourav Thakur, Shivansh Upadhyaya, Himanshu Sharma, Harshit Goel, Ayush Gupta and Arya. Mr. Zozimus Labana, from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, was the faculty advisor.

An elated Mr. Labana says, “It has always been a wonderful opportunity to mentor Team Astral from UPES for the CanSat competition. Watching these young minds tackle challenging tasks with innovation and creativity, has been a learning experience for me too. I am very proud of the students for their hardwork and dedication. I’m confident that a wonderful future awaits them.”

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, NASA Goddard, American Astronautical Society, Virginia Tech, Siemens, Praxis Inc, Kratos, Lockheed Martin and NRV Rocketry, sponsored the competition. This competition had three stages – Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Critical Design Review (CDR) and Post Flight Review (PFR).

The mission of the competition was to design a CanSat which consisted of a container and science payload. Adds Mr. Labana, “The science payload shall be a delta wing glider that will glide in a circular pattern, once released. The CanSat shall be launched to an altitude ranging 670 meters to 725 meters above the launch site and deployed near apogee (peak altitude). Orientation of deployment is not controlled and is most definitely violent. The CanSat container must protect the science payload from damage during the launch and deployment.” This mission is considered one of the most-respected and much-awaited competitions worldwide as teams from all over the globe participate in it.

Message from team leader Sarvesh Yadav, a student of B.Tech Aerospace Avionics:

“We worked extremely hard in the past months. Even the COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t stop us from achieving our goal. We formed a multi–disciplinary team, where students from different departments of the university worked together to achieve this success. As time flew by, this mission was not just another piece of work; it made us feel as if we were battling some unknown force. During the time of presentations and while tackling obstacles, it felt that now we were a part of something much bigger than what we had ever faced before. I would like to thank UPES, Department of Aerospace, and above all, our faculty advisor Professor Zozimus Labana for their constant support and guidance throughout our journey, and most importantly, encouraging us in our tough times.”