SENSORS 

For the CanSat project we have two missions, a primary and a secondary.
For our primary mission we must calculate three things: pressure, altitude and temperature. 

The pressure sensor that was provided to us in the kit was not as accurate as we would have liked and did not allow for varying atmospheric pressure on a day to day basis. Therefore, we are using a digital pressure sensor. We are going to be using the Digital Bosche BMP 085 pressure sensor. From using this sensor we are able to calculate a very accurate pressure and therefore a very accurate altitude reading as there is a linear relationship between pressure and altitude. 

For the temperature we are using the thermistor provided for us in the kit.  The BMP 085 also comes with a built in temperature reading which is extremely accurate and so we will be using this too. 

We have also purchased an SD card data logger back up for the wireless and we are in the process of finishing this we are going to write to it over an SPI.


For our secondary mission we will be using a humidity sensor. We will also be using a GPS that is almost ready to go but will not be ready for tomorrow due to the weather this week. We are writing to this over a soft serial that we have tested and proved to be working by using the wireless. We are also looking into the possibility of using something related to space debris or space trash if we progress further in the competition. 


By Chris