Hello, we are the Mad Mars Musketeers and the Vaasa IB CanSat team!

What is our mission?

Our mission is to simulate a Mars landing(can also be used for Moon or EXO planest) using airbags to create a soft landing. As everyone knows, most Mars landigs quite often fail for many reasons, sometimes even at the landing phase. With the use of airbags the chances of damage occuring during the landing would be lowered and giving the crafts that are trying to land more of a chance to land correctly, bottom to the ground and not tip over on to its side. Of course our other mission as a team is to get a result from the competition that we as a team can all be proud of, winning for us is a goal that we hope to strive for.

What is CanSat you may ask?

CanSat is an international competition where the goal is to create a simulation of a real satelite in the shape and size of a can. We musketeers are competing in the Finnish division of the European CanSat competitions, and if we were to win we would get to attend an event held in the Netherlands to celebrate each of the countries winning teams accomplishments.

You can't put just anything in your CanSat, like in any competition there are base requirements and regulations. You are able to view those throught the link above, but the most important ones are:

  • Each can must be able to measure temperature and airpressure during both launch and decent.
  • Each team must have a secondary mission.
  • Each can must fit inside a standard soda can (115mm height and 66mm diameter), excluding the parachute and any antenna attached, and be between a specific weight (300-350g)
  • To make sure the can survives the landing.
  • All information measured by the can must be able to be reseaved by a laptop in the ground
  • All explosives, detonators, pyrotechnics, and inflammable or dangerous materials are strictly forbidden, so you can't have a pyrotechnic shown built in your can.
  • Cans need to be powered by a battery ans/or a solar panel, can be switched on and off by a easily accessed master switch and can be on for 4 continues hours.