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Software

The tools we write ourselves, from the ground station that follows every flight to the star tracker for our payload.

Ground station console: status, 3D orientation, map and live graphs

Rocket dashboard2024

Live telemetry from launch to recovery

A ground-station dashboard built by Tejas Kadam for STES Rocketry. It streams 3D attitude, GPS position, descent alerts and flight graphs from the rocket over LoRa, so the team watches the flight as it happens instead of waiting for the black box.

10 HzLive updates60 FPS 3D view

How it works

  1. Live 3D vehicle attitude, driven by BNO055 quaternions.
  2. A GPS map with the recovery vector and a 1.0 km safety perimeter, with warnings as the rocket nears its edge.
  3. Descent and apogee detection from vertical velocity, with live drogue and main chute status.
  4. Open to several screens on local Wi-Fi, including mobile recovery clients, and a post-flight PDF report made automatically.

Details

Sensors
BNO055 attitude, MS5611 altitude, NEO-8M GPS
Radio
LoRa SX1276, with RSSI and packet loss tracking
Flight computer
ESP32, 240 MHz, FreeRTOS
Backend
Python, Flask-SocketIO, PySerial at 115200 baud
Frontend
Three.js, Leaflet.js, Chart.js
Field tested
SCOE, Pune
3D attitude and live values
3D attitude and live values
Flight tracker with the 1 km safety perimeter
Flight tracker with the 1 km safety perimeter
Star tracker: Leo recognised from Regulus, Algieba and Adhafera

Star trackerPrototype

Finds stars and recognises constellations

Desktop software that finds stars in a sky image, recognises constellation patterns and estimates which way the camera is pointing. It is a prototype for star based attitude sensing.

4ConstellationsOrion, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Leo

How it works

  1. Load an image, tune the threshold and star size limits, then detect stars.
  2. Stars are found by smoothing, thresholding and cleaning the image, then refining each star's centre to sub-pixel accuracy.
  3. Constellations are recognised from the geometry of the detected stars: Orion's belt, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia's W and Leo's sickle.
  4. From the match it estimates pointing in RA and Dec, plus roll, pitch and yaw, and saves a report.

Details

Language
Python, with NumPy, SciPy and Pillow
Interface
Desktop app built with Tkinter
Star catalog
33 built-in bright stars, Hipparcos file supported
Output
RA, Dec, roll, pitch, yaw and a confidence
Status
Prototype: estimates to be checked against GPS and IMU