Drop Your Thesis! 2018 - Land3U Team

The Land3U team consists of one PhD, and five MSc students from Cranfield University’s Astronautics and Space Engineering course. The team's microgravity experiment proposed to simulate the landing of a 3U CubeSat on an asteroid, as part of ESA Academy's Drop Your Thesis! 2018 Programme. For the team, the low gravity conditions of the Drop Tower in Bremen, Germany, are perfect as it resembles the gravity conditions surrounding the asteroids. Their CubeSat experiment sought to provide valuable insights into the engineering challenges that must be addressed by future asteroid missions; in particular when attempting to land on the surface of such low-gravity bodies.