What is CanSat?
The European CanSat Competition is an ESA Education project that promotes STEM literacy amongst young European students through project-based learning. A CanSat is a simulation of a real satellite, integrated within the volume and shape of a soft drink can. The team’s challenge is to fit all the major subsystems of a satellite inside this minimal volume, launched by a small rocket up to an altitude of 1 km. As the CanSat descends, its mission begins.
Every participating CanSat team will have to accomplish two missions: a mandatory primary mission to transmit and collect air temperature and pressure data at least once a second by radio communication; the secondary mission is completely open to the students’ imagination. Your secondary mission could be exploring a new planet, analysing earth’s atmosphere, developing a rover to fit inside the CanSat, or anything else you can think of.