OSCAR finally left UHasselt, in a very heavy and sturdy wooden box.
... bye bye, baby Aury!
See you in Kiruna!
woensdag 21 september 2016
dinsdag 20 september 2016
S.U.Z.Y. meets OSCAR
Our experiment passed its last review, and is finally ready to fly.
With this news, a lot of local news channels and science enthusiasts got really interested in us, and that's how we ended up not only on the local TV channel TV Limburg and in the national news paper Het Laatste Nieuws...
It was quite something to meet the man who sang about lovely satellite S.U.Z.Y, spinning quietly above the Earth and watching us from a distance.
Tot binnenkort, S.U.Z.Y!
woensdag 7 september 2016
Work work work work work....
Neverending work in space business!
Even if you actually stop at the stratosphere ;-)
Our electronics team needed to assemble lots of tiny components on our very cool Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), which are those fabulously practical sheets that hold all our connections. Since all the resistors, capacitors, amplifiers, and other elements of the circuit were not there yet, someone needed to spend long hours to position them on top of the right connections, paste them in place, and then "bake them" (the correct term is "solder") in order to create the link between the component itself and the electrical pathway hidden inside the PCB.
This requires quite some patience, good eyes, and a whole lot of time!
That's why we had an overkill of footage for this little timelapse video about the PCB finalization process.
The second head you see in the video is Thijs Vandenryt's, a brilliant engineer who volunteered to help us! Thank you Super TV!
Even if you actually stop at the stratosphere ;-)
Our electronics team needed to assemble lots of tiny components on our very cool Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), which are those fabulously practical sheets that hold all our connections. Since all the resistors, capacitors, amplifiers, and other elements of the circuit were not there yet, someone needed to spend long hours to position them on top of the right connections, paste them in place, and then "bake them" (the correct term is "solder") in order to create the link between the component itself and the electrical pathway hidden inside the PCB.
This requires quite some patience, good eyes, and a whole lot of time!
That's why we had an overkill of footage for this little timelapse video about the PCB finalization process.
The second head you see in the video is Thijs Vandenryt's, a brilliant engineer who volunteered to help us! Thank you Super TV!
donderdag 1 september 2016
... and this is how Aury was born!
A while back we learnt about how circuits are born.
Now it is time to praise the team who brought Aury up!
Our magnetometer is basically ready to fly, and that is because Jarda and Jelle (J&J) dedicated a lot of hard work and sacrifice to their little creation.
Here on the left is a very 'early' photo of Aury, when she was still a baby magnetometer, and needed to be connected to a few expensive lab tools to operate.
During the last few months, J&J made it possible for her to fly with her own equipment, designed especially to be light weight and "inexpensive" (she is still quite precious), and perfectly fit for the application we need.
The principle to probe the magnetic field is based on the splitting of degenerate energy levels, their photoluminescence, and the visualization of the whole process via the dips in the intensity of the exciting microwaves.
Before you get your minds in the gutter for this last element, make sure you refresh your memory on how we can use diamond to sense the magnetic field...
So, we need a microwave excitation to split the energy levels, a laser and a light sensor to create and detect the photoluminescence, and of course a lot of electronics and software to write down in files what is happening, so that we can look at the data afterwards.
This translates into having to "break down" the voltage, in order to power up the various components, which is done with the circuit on the left, then generating the frequency which will "time" the entire setup through the means of a square signal wave, which is handled by the circuit on the right, and of course in driving the laser correctly (which means making sure it always gets the right amount of current).
The only two commercial components which will fly with Aury are those which generate the microwave sweep itself (the timing of it is given by the home-built square wave signal generator).
But now, where is the actual diamond in all this?
It's where you see the green of the laser shining... right in her heart!
And beware, this is her last naked photo: she will get a nice dress by the time she will fly, because she won't be a little girl anymore!
P.S.: our testing also continues... on Youtube!
Now it is time to praise the team who brought Aury up!
Our magnetometer is basically ready to fly, and that is because Jarda and Jelle (J&J) dedicated a lot of hard work and sacrifice to their little creation.
Here on the left is a very 'early' photo of Aury, when she was still a baby magnetometer, and needed to be connected to a few expensive lab tools to operate.
During the last few months, J&J made it possible for her to fly with her own equipment, designed especially to be light weight and "inexpensive" (she is still quite precious), and perfectly fit for the application we need.
The principle to probe the magnetic field is based on the splitting of degenerate energy levels, their photoluminescence, and the visualization of the whole process via the dips in the intensity of the exciting microwaves.
Before you get your minds in the gutter for this last element, make sure you refresh your memory on how we can use diamond to sense the magnetic field...
So, we need a microwave excitation to split the energy levels, a laser and a light sensor to create and detect the photoluminescence, and of course a lot of electronics and software to write down in files what is happening, so that we can look at the data afterwards.
This translates into having to "break down" the voltage, in order to power up the various components, which is done with the circuit on the left, then generating the frequency which will "time" the entire setup through the means of a square signal wave, which is handled by the circuit on the right, and of course in driving the laser correctly (which means making sure it always gets the right amount of current).
The only two commercial components which will fly with Aury are those which generate the microwave sweep itself (the timing of it is given by the home-built square wave signal generator).
But now, where is the actual diamond in all this?
It's where you see the green of the laser shining... right in her heart!
And beware, this is her last naked photo: she will get a nice dress by the time she will fly, because she won't be a little girl anymore!
P.S.: our testing also continues... on Youtube!
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