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10/10/07 - 2nd Annual Intercollegiate Rocket Competition and General Updates
Been a long time since we've had an update, but we've completed quite a bit in that time...
Firstly, Daedalus traveled to Green River, Utah in late June for the ESRA University rocket competition. In true Daedalus fashion, we left Tempe at midnight and arrived exactly 1 hour late due to a miscalculation in time zone changes. Four of us left for the competition: myself (James Villarreal), Thomas Villarreal, Mark Sipperley, and Jacob Dennis. The competition was tough, and the terrain was even more so. Our competition rocket RPR (an acronym for Rocket Propelled Rocket) performed quite well on its maiden flight, especially considering it was our first launch of a home-made solid rocket M-impulse class motor. More information on both RPR and the motor mixing techniques can be found in the Projects link. In short, the lower section of the rocket was made entirely from carbon fiber cloth wrapped and epoxied around a concrete mandrel tube covered in thin mylar. We applied heat shrink tape to the 4 foot section, but it was a mess. Next time we will surely opt for vacuum bagging. The lower section was made to accept either a 3 or 4 inch motor case, so we have plenty of flexibility for later launches. The upper section was wrapped in a similar manner, but with fiberglass cloth instead so that our RDAS GPS and downlink would work properly. The real-time telemetry worked perfectly (as always) and gave us (and the judges) a perfect reading of our altitude up to our final apogee of 6,000 ft AGL.
Click this blue text for a link to the RPR launch video!!!
Of course the competition was to 10kft, but we knew going there that we could not hit that altitude with out current 3" mixed motor. If we had the time we could have mixed up a larger 4" motor that would have worked just fine, but alas we didn't. As such, we won Second Place in the competition, but we also grabbed the Jim Furfaro Award for Technical Excellence (shown in the above picture) based upon our rocket design, our 11 page report, our 45 minute long grill-session at the launch, and finally our PowerPoint presentation at the end of the competition. I'm quite happy about our second place, but the technical excellence award seemed to hit home the largest. We went out of our way to come up with some safe but novel technologies to showcase at the launch (real-time telemetry & GPS, body & fin carbon fiber construction, self-made solid rocket motors, and a deployable payload). Everyone back at the lab was pleased for our recognition.
We did run into a few snags testing our motors before the launch. First off, our home-built signal booster for our load cell on our thrust stand want awry and decided to cut out after a reading of 300lbs. I'm sure our excitation voltage is to blame, but next time we'll be sure to test the thrust stand with weights up to the expected thrust levels just to be sure. Next, our M-motor had such a punch that it knocked the thrust stand loose of our not-so quality attempt at firmly attaching it to the farm land we were testing on. We nearly had a rocket sled on our hands had it not been for some additional concrete blocks we strategically placed on the motor stand... We will shortly be doing motor tests again, but this time with a working DAQ system and possibly a 1,000psi pressure transducer we had purchased a while back. Our tests are quite simple: mix up several H-motors worth of propellant and test them each at different Kn values (using differing nozzle sizes) to characterize the propellant. Then, when we're happy with the mixture, we move onto full scale M-motor bate grain mixing and curing. Here's a snap-shot of an H-motor test:
Lately our efforts have turned to refurbishing RPR for another launch this OCTOBER 28th at the Estrella launch site. RPR had a bit of a rough landing due to a snagged parachute, but mostly due to the rough Utah terrain in which it landed (on the side of a rocky hill to be exact). Once that is complete, then we move onto refurbishing TLA part Deux and get that ready for a supersonic flight sometime at the end of the semester after some serious motor testing. Next, we will again turn our focus to the 3rd Annual Intercollegiate Rocket Competition, as well as participate in the AIAA Student Conference that will be held here at Arizona State next year.
~ James Kendall Villarreal; Project Director