130 students will launch their small satellites in the Catalan qualifying phase of the Cansat competition

The winning team will be announced on 3 May at the ESEIAAT headquarters in Terrassa, and will represent Catalonia at the Spanish grand final in Granada

Up to 130 students from Secondary Education, High School and Vocational Education and Training (the so-called FP, in Spanish) from all over Catalonia, tutored by their teachers, will participate in the Catalan qualifying phase of the CanSat competition next Saturday, 29 April, which will take place at the Alguaire Airport in Lleida. The event will be attended by the President of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), Daniel Crespo; the Secretary of Digital Policies of the Government of Catalonia, Gina Tost i Faus; the President of Aeroports de Catalunya, Daniel Albalate, and other representatives of the organising and collaborating entities. The small satellites built by the participants will be launched at 11 am, at 12:30 pm and 2 pm.

CanSat is a competition that is promoted every year throughout Europe by the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO) of the European Space Agency (ESA) and consists of the design, construction and launch of small satellites, the size of a can of soda. The School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa (ESEIAAT) of the UPC is organising the state classification phase of this competition in Catalonia, with the support of the Secretary of Digital Policies of the Ministry of Business and Labour, within the framework of the Talent and Society axis of the NewSpace Strategy of Catalonia.

The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya), also collaborates in this third edition of CanSat in Catalonia, together with Aeroports de Catalunya and the Ministry of Education.

CanSat Catalunya, which aims to generate a vocation for space, technology and STEM disciplines among young people, has been consolidating itself year after year as one of the major scientific and technological events in the region aimed at young people. In the first edition, 14 teams registered; last year, a total of 50 teams registered, and this third edition has exceeded all expectations, with the registration of 70 teams from secondary schools from all over Catalonia.

This year, after the preliminary selection of the projects presented, 22 teams from 13 different schools will take part in the lift-off day: 18 will take off in rockets built by the ESEIAAT Cosmic Research students' association and compete for the victory, and 4 more teams will do so by plane, in a non-competitive launch. In total, therefore, 130 secondary school, high school and vocational training students, tutored by their teachers, will be taking part in the lift-off day.

For an entire academic year, these young students have dedicated their talent to designing and building their CanSats, small satellites that integrate telemetry, sensors and data transmitters, and that have the necessary size to fit inside a soda can.

Caption: The students of the Cansat 2022 edition in Catalonia.
Credits: ESEIAAT – UPC.

A scientific and technological challenge

According to David González, deputy director of ESEIAAT and coordinator of CanSat in Catalonia, "the competition is both a technological and scientific challenge. In fact, it is not just a matter of launching the satellite and getting it back to earth safe and sound. The CanSats built by the students must be able to take measurements, such as air temperature or atmospheric pressure, and carry out a scientific mission. Participants have to analyse and interpret the results obtained in a critical way. Therefore, we are talking about going further, about putting into practice the knowledge they have learnt in class".

The 18 finalist teams will present their results on 3 May at the ESEIAAT in Terrassa, where they will have to present their conclusions to a jury. On the same day, the winning team will be chosen and proclaimed, and will represent Catalonia in the Spanish phase of the CanSat, which will take place from 19 to 21 May in Granada.

Main Image

Caption: The first edition of Cansat in Catalonia took place in 2021 and had the registration of 14 teams.
Credits: ESEIAAT – UPC.

Links
– IEEC
– CanSat
– Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC)
– European Space Education Resource Office 
– School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa
– Ministry of Business and Labour
– NewSpace Strategy of Catalonia
– Aeroports de Catalunya
–Ministry of Education

More information

The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC  — Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya) promotes and coordinates space research and technology development in Catalonia for the benefit of society. IEEC fosters collaborations both locally and worldwide and is an efficient agent of knowledge, innovation and technology transfer. As a result of more than 25 years of high-quality research, done in collaboration with major international organisations, IEEC ranks among the best international research centers, focusing on areas such as: astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, and Earth Observation. IEEC’s engineering division develops instrumentation for ground- and space-based projects, and has extensive experience in working with private or public organisations from the aerospace and other innovation sectors.  

IEEC is a private non-profit foundation, governed by a Board of Trustees composed of Generalitat de Catalunya and four other institutions that each have a research unit, which together constitute the core of IEEC R&D activity: the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) with the research unit ICCUB — Institute of Cosmos Sciences; the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) with the research unit CERES — Center of Space Studies and Research; the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC) with the research unit CTE — Research Group in Space Sciences and Technologies; the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with the research unit ICE — Institute of Space Sciences. The IEEC is a CERCA (Centres de Recerca de Catalunya) center.

Contacts

IEEC Communication Office
Barcelona, Spain
E-mail: comunicacio@ieec.cat