Cretan Astronaut

The first mission to space from Crete. The goal of the first mission is to send the Cretan Astronaut figure to the stratosphere, at an altitude of 30km with a fully reusable HAB-type structure. During the flight, the vessel will record meteorological measurements, position, velocity and acceleration with a GPS module as well as an inertial measurement system. It will also maintain radio communication with our receiver, sending important data to be displayed in our flight control interface. The whole journey will be recorded by a 360° field of view camera. Our team is designing and building all the mechanical and electronic parts of the mission from scratch. We have implented two innovations: 1) The full reusability of the ship - Our innovation lies in the fact that the high altitude balloon does not burst but deflates upon reaching the stratosphere and can be reused once the vessel is retrieved, thus, reducing the cost of such missions. 2) The addition of two degrees of flight control, facilitating its recovery - We can control the balloon deflation altitude as well as the parachute deployment altitude. This way we can set a target altitude for the balloon and we aim to reduce the landing radius after the balloon has deflated by deploying the parachute at a low, but safe, altitude in order to increase the chances of retrieval. The initiative is supported by Youth Entrepreneurship Club. Our team: Alexandros Poupakis - Chief Technology Officer Dimitris Theodosiou - Mechanical Engineer Thanos Paraschos - Project Manager Basilis Kottas - Marketing Manager John Antoniou - Graphic Designer / Web Developer Maria Metochianaki - Marketing Assistant Olympia Kokka - Project Administrator