SmartFish is a fish shaped airplane. The project is about building a complete navigation system and ground station for it. The first big experiment will be an autonomous flight from a balloon at 15km of altitude. The experiment is part of the RexusBexus campaign for 2009. Here there is more information about the project and the team.
-
SF0 evolves to…. the new SF1!
Posted on May 22nd, 2009 No commentsThe SF0 (the mock-up) mechanical design is almost ready. The landing gear, the ducted fan, the motor and the rails into the fuselage for the electronics are ready to be mounted altogether during this weekend.
But we don’t stop here, the SF1 is already built, with only a 1.9Kg of mass! It will be a copy of the SF0 but ready to fly. We hope to be ready to flight it during the next two or three weeks. The next model, the SF2, is under construction, it will be built lighter (1.2Kg expected) with some ribs to add the parachute deployment system. The SF2 model will be without landing gear, ready to experiment with our balloon, and it will be the first candidate for fly in the BEXUS campaign.
The SpaceFish team with the new SF1
We will have the tests videos ready soon, we had a busy week testing and validating all our electronics and software successfully. And we are so proud of announce that our 3D cockpit is nearly complete.
Also, we want to present you our testing jet, it shares the same electric motor and ducted fan with the SF1. It is an alpha-jet with enough space for our electronics inside the cockpit.
SpaceFIsh Testing Jet
.
-
Preparing the flying model
Posted on May 13th, 2009 No commentsSo, here we are again. This time preparing the flying model of the SpaceFish for the first flight!
Kamil joined us this week, he is working on the parachute deployment system and also on the placement of all the parts inside the SpaceFish. We hope to show you interesting videos during the next week, this Friday we will test all the stuff in a real flight mission, stay tuned!
Héctor and Kamil with the SpaceFish
