Week in Space Data, every Friday.
A beginner-friendly project: design, build and launch a soda-can-sized satellite on a hobby rocket or weather balloon. Log pressure, temperature and GPS to an SD card.
Define the objective: maximum altitude, sample rate, payload mass, recovery method. Keep the wet mass under ~350 g for safe recovery on a small parachute. Sketch the stack so everything fits inside the can with the battery at the bottom.
On a breadboard, connect the Arduino to the BMP280 (I2C), GPS (UART) and SD card (SPI). Print one reading per second over serial for an hour to check for lockups. Verify GPS fix outdoors.
Write a single loop: sample → timestamp → write to SD → optional LoRa packet. Use a monotonic millis timer rather than delays to avoid drift. Store failures into a separate log file.
Lay out the perfboard compactly. Use wire-wrap or careful soldering; every gram counts. Secure the battery with Kapton tape and add a slide switch on the outside of the can.
Drill or cut an access port in the can for the switch and serial/download. Pack foam to damp vibration. Attach a parachute via a swivel so it does not spin-lock the lines.
Launch on a D- or E-class hobby rocket (or a weather balloon). Inspect the CanSat pre-flight, arm the switch at pad, log the serial output on recovery. Record ambient temperature for post-processing.
Plot altitude vs time and compare to your predicted profile. Look for dropouts in GPS (common under high-g) and fix the software or mounting for the next flight.