Meet the team: GDArms
The GDArms team is composed of two PhD students and 14 graduate students from Gdañsk University of Technology in Poland. The aim of the experiment is to recreate dynamic, thermal and pressure conditions of a sounding rocket.
Recreation of rocket environment for payload testing
| University: | Gdañsk University of Technology |
| Endorsing professor: | Prof. Edmund Wittbrodt, Gdañsk University of Technology, Poland |
| Team: | Piotr Duba, Adam D¹browski, Agnieszka Elwertowska, Szymon Krawczuk, Kamil Wa¿ny, Darek Piotrowicz, Oskar Rokita, Wojciech Holf, Patryk Krzemiñski, Olga Saganek, Cezary Kozubal, Jan Lewandowski, Bartosz Zieliñski, Damian Worobiej, Kuba Swiniarski, Magdalena Koszczuk |
Prior to any rocket launch, payload needs to be tested whether it will survive harsh conditions. These include accelerations, vibrations, intensive heat flow and vacuum. Usually these tests are performed separately: vibrations are tested using electrodynamic shakers, thermal and pressure conditions are tested inside thermal vacuum (TVAC) chambers. Static accelerations are usually ignored in such tests.
The latter can be recreated inside a centrifuge, such as Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) in ESTEC. This facility enables so called combined environmental testing where all conditions are recreated simultaneously rather than separately. Such approach enables studying cross-correlation of abovementioned phenomena.
Our team will create a unique shaker-TAVC device that will fit inside the LDC. A single 1U CubeSat with sensors measuring environmental conditions will be placed inside our experiment as payload. This technology demonstrator could be later developed into a one-of-a-kind facility for easy and cheap testing of nanosatellites.
