In the CanSat competition, high school students make a satellite that’s the size of a tin can. The students’ challenge is to fit the power supply, sensors and communication system into this size. During the finals, the satellites are carried up to an altitude of about 1 kilometre by drone or balloon, at which point the satellite’s main mission occurs: to conduct a science experiment or technology demonstration, land safely and analyse the data collected.

Each participating team must complete two missions: a compulsory primary mission to transmit and collect air temperature and pressure data at least once a second via radio communication; the secondary mission is completely open to the students’ imagination. The secondary mission could be an autonomous landing system, an analysis of Earth’s atmosphere, the development of a rover that fits in a cansat, or anything else you can think of.