Additional URoc/Tripoli Launch Pictures by Shon Reed

A Tripoli member, Shon Reed, decided to help us out by taking some really nice pictures of the actual launch.  They were so nice I decided to include them here.

Photo by Shon Reed

Photo by Shon Reed

Photo by Shon Reed

Photo by Shon Reed

January 2011 URoc/Tripoli Launch

We have met with Tripoli, the national rocketry club, they have agreed to let us piggyback our avionics team's packages this spring.  This will help the avionics team to calibrate their data, and test their systems designs so that everything will work on the big launch.  The rockets we are testing on are a lot smaller than what we will be using for our space launch, but the data gathered will be very useful.  Also due to some awesome Electrical Engineering undergrads who professionally film wedding, etc. We now have a film crew that will be documenting all our events and progress.  They will eventually make it into a documentary in hopes of selling it to Discovery or some other studio.  We are very grateful to them for all their efforts and are glad to welcome them on board.  I will try to include their company name and contact information soon, as well as our sponsors from Tripoli.  Here are some pictures from today's launch:

The launch site past Eagle Mountain and Fairfield, before Rush Valley

Joseph Green, Brandon Terry and Jed Marti (Tripoli Sponsor), and Mike and the video crew filming

Setting the launch site up.  We launched on a J 550 size rocket motor.

Kelvin and Lydia Bailey all excited for launch

Brandon Terry, Joseph Green, and Kelvin Bailey

Here's a video of the actual launch, Lydia's not a fan of the loud noise made by the rocket.

Here's a video of the landing of the rocket.

Bad News

Well we have bad news. Do to some problems with BLM paperwork, we had to postpone the launch date. It's a real bummer to all of us, but we will have to postpone. The new proposed date is in May, May 8th is what we are planning on at the moment as long as that works with their schedule. This is good and bad news. Good because it means we have more time to prepare for launch, we won't be as rushed, and have a higher chance for success. The bad news is that it will be after graduation and may be a conflict for post graduation plans. It also turns out that the weather in May is much better for this kind of launch, so it may be for the best after all. Stay posted for more details.

I just wanted to post some more pictures from our presentations to the  school a couple weeks ago. Victor Ruiz took a couple pictures of the team after the event and here they are. Enjoy.

Left to Right: Dr Dan Adams, Dr Kuan Chen, Ryan Christensen, Brant Fletcher, Eric Carver, Justin Cote, Rachel Heiselmeyer, Brandon Terry, Victor Ruiz, Chase Nelson, Steve Newbold, Kelvin Bailey, Joseph Green, Danielle Hudson, Jacob Warner, and Jay Hansen

Another picture of the team

The team chatting with some of the professors.

Launch Tower Progress

The Launch tower team has been working very hard this semester to come up with a good design that will be able to withstand all the forces and safety constraints for our rocket launch.  Here’s some details on their design as well as information about their prototype for this semester. Check it out!

Here is our current design for the launch tower. Right now the tower is 25 feet tall. We are planning to construct the tower out of one-inch steel pipe. We chose steel for its strength and for the ease of welding.

As you can see from the top view of the launch tower, there is a system of rails that support the tower and run in direct contact with the length of the rocket. We wanted to know how much force the rails are going to feel and how much force they could take.

The first test we performed was to find the coefficient of friction between the rails and the rocket. We used a simple force gauge to measure and then calculate the coefficient of friction. We found the coefficient of friction of be about .20.

Then we built a section of the launch tower and tested it in the load frame. The section of tower we built sustained about 425 pounds of force. So, if the rails supported the rocket with a 10-pound compressive force, it would translate to a 2-pound upward force on the rails. Or in other words the launch tower is not going to fail in this way.

Uroc Rocket Team met with Lockheed Martin Advisor 12/1/2010

So last Wednesday we (the motor team) had a teleconference with Lockheed Martin and AeroTech which went really well, we were able to answer most of the questions that Lockheed had, and those that we couldn't answer Gary (Aerotech CEO and our first supporter) was able to answer them. We may have to adjust the diameter of the rocket to fit stock aluminum tubing sizes, which may change the design somewhat, but we feel the change will be manageable.  Also we are going to have to do some additional analysis for wind shear and thermal variables.  After meeting with both companies we all just felt really good about the project we felt like this is an ambitious project but we can do it! The companies really helped us feel like this is possible, difficult, but possible. I would just like to say thank you to all of our sponsors for all of your support and help we couldn't have gotten to this point without you!

Airframe Prototype Update

This semester we Mechanical Engineering students had to do a few Critical Function Prototypes, which would help us analyze critical components of the rocket and ensure they worked properly.  The airframe did a little write up of their prototype which looked at the rocket separation.  Here's what they wrote:

Prototype model red is the rest of the airframe, blue is the parachute bay and black is the black powder charge the shear screws can be seen at the tops and bottoms of the drawing

The section separation for parachute deployment is likely the most critical function for safe recovery of the rocket after it has been launched.  To verify the reliability of the separation design a scaled portion of the rocket was made to test the separation method.  The separation design used fastens the two sections together with three small shear screws which are broken when a black powder charge inside of the connection ignites and explodes the two sections apart.  

Prototype of the connection between the motor and the rest of the airframe

The connection after the charge was set off

We calculated that about 6 grams of black powder would be required to shear the screws.  We incorporated a safety factor of 1.5 to ensure that there would be a large enough explosion to separate the sections, so we loaded the test section with 9.5 grams of black powder.  We tested the separation 4 different times, and each time everything functioned perfectly.  One lesson learned is that a smaller safety factor may be used for the amount of black powder because when the videos frames are slowed we observed that the sections separated with excessive force.  

Another critical lesson learned is that little to no debris from the black powder charge will escape into the avionics bay.  This was another critical part of the test because debris or soot in the avionics bay could damage the electronics systems.

Prototype parachute bay after detonation test, very little debris in the chamber

The airframe and avionics teams on the day of the test