Motivation: To design, test and launch a payload that can protect an egg dropped from a height of 700 feet. This aims to simulate the entry, descent and landing of a delicate instrument entering an atmosphere of another planet, such as Mars. The mission was to follow the 4 stages shown below.

I worked on the deployment and release mechanism for the heat shield. The solution we came up with was to use heated nichrome wire to release a spring in stages which pushed out a rod.

Additionally, we designed internal rails on the heat shield to keep it securely attached to the probe before its release.