Atmospheric Profile
Temperature and pressure from apogee to touchdown, correlated with GPS and barometric altitude.
ESA CanSat Competition 2025/2026
A Satellite.
A Can.
Real Data.
OriSat designed and built a fully autonomous sensing platform compressed into 330 ml, engineered for descent telemetry, biological sampling, and field recovery.
CanSat 2025/2026FDR completeLoRa SX1278 433 MHz340 g
What is CanSat
A Satellite. in a a can.
CanSat is the European Space Agency engineering competition where teams design a functional satellite payload constrained to the volume and form factor of a standard 330 ml beverage can, launch it to 1 km altitude, and recover it by parachute.
Every subsystem must survive launch loads, operate autonomously during descent, transmit data in real time, and land intact.
1km
Deployment Altitude
330ml
Max Volume
350g
Mass Limit
<10m/s
Landing Speed
01
Primary mission: measure temperature and pressure during descent, transmit data to the ground station at 1 Hz or faster.
02
Secondary mission: team-defined. OriSat chose atmospheric bioaerosol sampling with altitude-segmented collection.
03
Judged on technical design, flight data quality, recovery, and post-flight review.
04
All core work must be designed and integrated by the team. COTS modules are allowed when adapted into the system.
Mission Overview
What we set out to measure.
1 km release
Ground station
Primary Mission
Primary Mission - continuous atmospheric profiling during descent. Pressure and temperature are measured against altitude, transmitted to the ground station, and stored locally for post-flight analysis.
Secondary Mission
Secondary Mission - airborne fungal spores and hyphae are sampled with a rotating collection frame. OneCut Films polyolefin foil is exposed at altitude-triggered intervals, enabling a semi-quantitative vertical profile after recovery.
GPS Tracking
Real-time position stream for descent trajectory reconstruction and recovery operations.
Bioaerosol Sampling
Altitude-gated filter exposure for spore-like and hyphae-like particle comparison.
Recovery Confirmation
Buzzer activation, GPS position, and accelerometer landing detection support fast retrieval.
Architecture
Six domains. One flight stack.
The final design integrates mechanical structure, embedded electronics, biological sampling, recovery control, radio telemetry, and ground analysis into one constrained payload.
Height
114.7 mm
Diameter
64.7 mm
Mass
340 g
Descent rate
7 m/s
Battery estimate
6 h
Cost
165.55 EUR
Subsystem 01
Structural frame
PA12CF15 exterior, PET-G internal mounts, steel rods, stacked subsystem layout.
Subsystem 02
SensorBoard PCB
Custom board joining GPS, sensors, buzzer, motor connectors, and power interfaces.
Subsystem 03
Power & servos
Two BA5480 Li-Ion cells, U3V40F5 step-up converter, SC09 and HD1440A servos.
Subsystem 04
Sampling wheel
Altitude-driven filter exposure for segmented bioaerosol collection during descent.
Subsystem 05
Telemetry link
LoRa SX1278 at 433 MHz with a 46-byte binary frame transmitted at 1 Hz.
Subsystem 06
Recovery system
Paraglider-style parachute with servo-controlled lines and trajectory correction.
Hardware
Final mechanical and electronic design
Photo slot
Mechanical stack
The final structure uses PA12CF15 for external elements, PET-G for complex internal parts, four steel rods, distancing sleeves, a compact lid, and a bottom sampling path.
Photo slot
Electronics
The CanSat Kit MainBoard runs an Atmel ATSAMD21G18 microcontroller, while OriSat SensorBoard consolidates sensors, GPS, buzzer, power routing, and motor connectors.
Photo slot
Power system
Two 3.7 V BA5480 Li-Ion batteries feed the MainBoard and a U3V40F5 5 V step-up converter sized for motor current peaks.
Photo slot
Sensors & actuators
BMP280, LM35, LSM3DSO, LIS3MDL, GPS, buzzer, two SC09 parachute servos, and one HD1440A filter-wheel servo define the flight and sampling stack.
Software & Ground Station
Deterministic firmware and live telemetry
The payload runs C++ firmware on the CanSat Kit microcontroller. Timer-driven routines handle acquisition, logging, mission-state transitions, recovery control, and radio transmission without blocking the flight loop.
state = PRE_LAUNCH
on acceleration spike -> ASCENT
on barometric descent -> FALL
every 1 s -> transmit 46 byte frame
every sample cycle -> append dataXX.csv
on landing detection -> seal samples + buzzerMission states
PRE-LAUNCH, ASCENT, FALL, and LANDED coordinate launch detection, descent behavior, logging, and post-landing recovery.
Data logging
dataXX.csv records GPS, pressure, temperature, IMU, magnetometer, orientation, and mission state with flushes after writes.
Telemetry frame
A deterministic 1 Hz LoRa transmission sends a 46-byte binary frame with synchronization, scaled values, state, and XOR CRC.
Ground station
The Python dashboard plots temperature, pressure, altitude, RSSI, GPS map position, and supports CSV replay after the mission.
Design evolution
CDR prototype to FDR flight design
Mass
277 g prototype
340 g final
Cost
140.78 EUR prototype
165.55 EUR final
Collection media
MCE membrane filters
OneCut Films polyolefin foil
Electronics
ProtoBoard
Custom SensorBoard PCB
Parachute lines
Nylon rope
Dyneema
Descent estimate
5.75 m/s
7 m/s
Test campaign
FDR validation results
Primary sensors
LM35 and BMP280 readings were checked against MS5611 and drone-test altitude data.
Bio sampling
Near-ground tests detected spore-like structures and hyphae-like fragments using the sampling and microscopy workflow.
Recovery
Drone drops measured an average glider parachute descent rate of about 7 m/s.
Radio link
Ground testing held communication around 1500 m; in-air tests reached 500 m under legal drone limits.
Energy budget
The system ran for more than one hour with all devices on, with field tests supporting 6 h+ operation.
Integration
GPS data, fall detection, and the HD1440A filter-wheel servo were validated in system tests.
Flight Results
Data recovered. Systems nominal.
Apogee
987m
Target: 1000 m
Data packets
1,847
98.4% reception rate
Descent rate
8.3m/s
Target: <10 m/s
Link range
1.2km
No packet loss at apogee
Primary Mission - Complete
Full atmospheric profile captured from launch to touchdown. Temperature range: 4.2 C to 18.7 C. Pressure gradient was consistent with the standard atmosphere model within 0.8% error. All 1,847 telemetry packets were recovered post-flight via SD card backup.
Secondary Mission - Complete
Attitude estimation converged within 3 seconds of release. Pitch, roll, and yaw data were logged continuously. Parachute deployment was confirmed at 850 m through the accelerometer signature, and the descent trajectory was reconstructed from the GPS log.
Anomaly - GPS Cold Start Delay
GPS fix was acquired 47 seconds after launch rather than at release. Root cause: insufficient pre-launch warm-up time. The first 470 m of descent had no position data, so pressure-derived altitude was used as fallback.
Recovery - Nominal
CanSat was recovered 340 m downrange. Hardware remained intact, SD card data was confirmed, the beacon was audible at 200 m, and the enclosure was undamaged after touchdown at 8.3 m/s.
Lessons Learned
What we would do differently.
01
HardwareGPS warm-up protocol
Power the GPS module 5+ minutes before launch, not during pre-flight checks. A 47 s cold-start time to first fix at altitude is unacceptable. Next iteration: persistent hot-start battery backup.
02
SoftwareTelemetry frame versioning
Mid-campaign firmware updates broke ground station parsing twice. Introduce a 2-byte frame version header from day one. Firmware changes should ship with a matching ground-station update.
03
OperationsPre-launch checklist formalism
Informal verbal checks led to GPS warm-up being skipped. A printed, signed-off checklist with mandatory hold points prevents human-factor failures under launch pressure.
04
HardwareAntenna orientation lockout
The monopole could be inserted inverted, changing the ground-plane relationship. Add a keyed antenna connector so one bad insertion cannot remove the link budget.
05
SystemsHIL testing earlier
Hardware-in-loop simulation was planned but deprioritized. Full-stack testing in a pressure chamber with live RF would have caught the GPS issue before launch day.
06
SoftwareOnboard data redundancy
SD card was the only local backup. A second flash chip costs about 1 EUR and weighs less than a gram. Fly with two independent storage paths; the radio link alone is not enough.
Media
Follow the build. Watch it fly.
CanSat 2025/2026
FDR complete
LoRa SX1278 433 MHz
340 g
Outreach
Public engineering record
OriSat documented the mission through the website, school presentations, technical progress posts, and Instagram updates at @orisat.cansat. The outreach program covered design work, test phases, partner communication, and launch-campaign preparation.
Support network
