High-Level Project Summary
Studying Venus is crucial to understand the past, present and future of what we call the galaxy and life. To do it, we completed the challenge Exploring Venus Together by creating a lander that will explore the surface of the planet, powered by a wind system that feeds a battery so we can generate and store energy to stay more than 60 days there. The winds in Venus can surpass 300 km/h, so we built a resistant lander that can survive for the time we need, and a storing energy system that will work on making it alive for at least the time of the challenge. Developing it was really necessary so we could learn how to generate and store our own energy using the resources that we had.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
We projected designs of the propeller, on Ipads and notebooks, to create the best way to organize energy inside the Lander. The wind system has a 30 cm radio propeller with 10 cm of thickness, made out of titanium and carbon fiber that can reach 3000 rpm. That speed, using a special dynamo, designed for this mission, including the Aluminum Nickel Cobalt magnet and a torque of 1.3 Nm, will produce 400 W of power. If future explorations need more power, adjust the torque and the propeller configurations will help. The ventilation system is prepared to receive the wind in 4 directions and in the best way, without extra consumption of energy. With this project, we aim for energy preservation, and the evolution of space exploration. Making a Lander, and powering it by at least 60 days can show us the past of our neighbor planet and show the path we could have in future. That's the importance of innovation in energy research. We are changing more than a world, one challenge at a time.
Space Agency Data
Our team used many space agency datas during this project. In fact, most, if not all, the information was taken from the NASA website and the challenges resource list. First of all, we used NASA's article and webpage about Venus to discover all about this planet such as atmosphere, temperature, pressure, etc. From there, we already had an idea of what we could do to some the problem proposed, such as the type of energy and materials that would survive such hostile environment. Then, we used the links that NASA gave us at the resources tab to discover the most suitable battery that would last 60 days at the Hell Planet. This helped us tremendously because to find a battery that could withstand this extreme environment. After that, we started to create our model and presentations, so using NASA's and some information from Space Agency for 2022, we researched some failed missions from before and we develop the best shape for our Lander to be and decided for sure the materials we could use. Later, we also used NASA open data to search the greatest sensors and cameras for our project. This was also really helpful, because not many cameras or sensors that could survive on Venus and having those is essential to any successful mission anywhere.
Hackathon Journey
We would describe it as hard, tiring and painful, but also as humbling, exciting and full of learning. We learnt about technology we've never even heard before (topographic lasers and thermo resistant materials), techniques we've never seen (landing using only the air break), contents we never studied about (electricity and thermos) and, especially, a lot about Space. Our team chose this challenge because it was doable by our abilities and it resolved a problem that existed for over 40 years: staying safely on Venus and producing energy there. We approached it respectfully but with a lot of intent on solving it. We not only made a lot of plans that could work in a way or another, but we also made calculations to know if these plans were infallible and talked to other mentors to know if our approach was the best it could be. We did a lot of brainstorming and internet searching, and when we thought of a solution that was viable, doable and desirable, we went all in on doing it the best way it could. We'd like to thanks all the mentors that helped us brainstorm and calculate.We would like to also thanks Colégio Bertoni and our robotics team STRIKE for helping us through this journey and our renewable energies teacher that helped us reach our goal and maximize this project to the best of our abilities our project.
References
At first we needed to know which materials we will use, based on temperature, pressure, and atmosphere conditions. Titanium is really strong and has a high fusion temperature and was what made it convenient to use it. In addition, its density is smaller than the strong steels, which will make our Lander lighter. material-properties.org/steel-vs-titanium-comparison-pros-and-cons/
To protect the titanium from the sulfuric acids, we searched for materials that would stand it; like the carbon fiber. So we will coat the titanium with the carbon fiber to solve the problem of the toxic atmosphere. carbonfibergear.com/blogs/carbonfiber/carbon-fiber-durability
To generate energy we use a wind system, using the wind on the planet, which can surpass the 300 km/h (esa.int). With a 60 cm diameter titanium propeller the wind will make us spin at 3000 rpm, and using a special dynamo with AlNiCo magnets which stands 600 °C, and a torque of 1.3 Nm we will produce 400 W of power. High Temperature Resistance Magnets | Stanford Magnets. To storage that energy, nasa already released batteries of LiAl-CO2 that endurance the hostile temperature of Venus (TalosTech LLC and University of Delaware).
Tags
#STIKEELITE #NASA #NasaSpaceAppsChallenge #Venus #Energy #Hardware #SpaceExploration #EolicEnergy #Robot #Exoplanet #Innovation #renewableenergy #Strike6902 #ColégioBertoni #HighSchoolStudents #BertoniInternacional #Science #Engineering