Copernicus - Space Apps Challenge

Copernicus| Can You Hear Me Now?

Can You Hear Me Now?

Human missions to Mars are moving from the realm of science fiction to science fact. Your challenge is to design an interactive application to explore the challenge of communicating with astronauts on Mars from Earth.

MARS-NET

Summary

Imagine if an accident occurs on Mars. When would we be notified on earth? He asks how these NASA engineers do them but how to explain something so complex to a person in a simple way? As if you would say it to a child. These important points that we will explain later are those that we as a team develop in order to find a way to teach the problems that exist in communication for our trip to Mars. That is why in the Copernicus group we created MARS-NET, a simple way to explain the difficult in a simple way.

How We Addressed This Challenge

And what is this?

In this challenge as a team we decided to find a way to explain to people how to face one of the challenges imposed by our trip to Mars. And as we know, not everyone understands the technical issues that these types of missions are carried out. That is why our web prototype seeks to explain in a simple way how it works and what ways exist to communicate.

When we are small we are always curious about everything and thanks to this there have been great explorers, scientists, artists, among others, who gave this world a gift. But many times when we ask we do not get an answer that fills that void. Or it may also happen that because we cannot understand, we just leave it and kill that spirit of being able to find something new or simply improve it. And that is why this project is important for our team, we seek to explain in the simplest way how we communicate with astronauts and the challenges it implies. And how to explain something of such magnitude?

First: We want people to be more interested in the subject, so the first part of this prototype shows us a cover of the red planet. Opening our imagination of what it will be like to see this great planet in person.

Second: This part tells how we began our trips to space, with the words of former United States President John F. Kenndy and the reason why we decided to go to Mars.

Third: The communication problem that we will have with the astronauts and how to pass so much information is explained.

Fourth: There are three ways that we use daily to communicate; radio, telephones and the Internet. And what are the advantages and disadvantages that these have for this type of mission.

Fifth: A possible solution is presented with forms that we design on earth or that nature has to improve our communication and how it can be used for this type of mission.

Sixth: The person is shown a guide on how to design in a simple way a way of communicating. Since we know that in this time of pandemic and communication has been physically interrupted and we had to look for other ways. What prompted the child or adult to seek a way to face communication problems not only for the mission to Mars but also here on earth.

What we mainly hope is that people can feel that there is nothing impossible and even if you are not an engineer, anyone has great ideas that come in different ways (Who knows, maybe you will find the equation that unifies the theory of relativity with the quantum looking at the clouds, you never know) and that there is always a different way to solve a problem. Second: that people can understand much better what human beings want to achieve, which is to get to Mars and how working as a team we can achieve it. And finally, have a different look at our Cosmos, be amazed at it.

How We Developed This Project

The Reason

Mainly what inspires us to do this project was the love and passion we have for space and teamwork. And we chose the Can You Hear Me Now? Challenge, because in what way can we give our grain of sand and maximize our potential with this type of challenge. Our team is made up of mostly engineering students and what a way to start looking for solutions with a challenge that NASA gives us. And we want to share that passion with other people looking for a way to explain difficult things in a simple way.

One of the things we learn as we grow up is to know how to communicate effectively and it can be said that this is something that marks our control as a species on earth. But many times we know how to do it and this leads to problems of finding a way to communicate. And the mission that reached Mars will need all the help on earth to carry out this great task that will mark our leadership as an interplanetary species. But in order to achieve that we must know how to communicate that to people who do not understand technical things and from children to adults can use this prototype to better understand what agencies like NASA want to achieve and at the same time open people's minds to to be able to find communication solutions that we have here on earth.

The tools we used for this project were the following:

Marvel APP: for the design of the web app.
Google Slide: to present how it works.
Canva: layout for presentation and icons for the web.

Problems we encountered while developing the project:

To be able to find a way to explain in a simple way to a child and an adult who does not have technical knowledge about this mission how to face this challenge.

Finding an attractive way to present a topic like this so that people pay attention, as we found that a person's attention can be lost in 6 seconds.

Find a place where it would allow us to design our web application.

What we achieved as a team in this project was:

Develop in a short time and with limited resources a project that could meet the points we wanted to obtain.

Learn in a short time to use software that will help us develop the prototype.

Apply the basic knowledge we have about grow marketing and psychology to explain a topic.

To be able to understand, process and communicate effectively the data and resources that the agencies provide us.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

The Knowledge Warehouse

In this project that we carry out the investigations carried out by agencies such as NASA, ESA and other organizations, we were able to find the key elements that anyone should know for our mission to Mars, of how we will communicate.

We use investigations such as the development of deep space communication, laser communication investigations, as if the astronauts of the ISS communicate with the earth, among others. Thus collecting the greatest amount of information to be able to process it in a way that a child can understand how complex this mission is.

Also thanks to the missions developed by NASA where robots have been sent to Mars to have a better understanding of what our current communication is like and what things can be improved.

We thank all agencies for sharing their research as they help us to develop or innovate in different ways solutions to current problems we face on earth. And so achieve a we listen to them Houston!