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AIAA Rocket Report |
What a way to spend a summer. |
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2010 AIAA Young Professionals Rocket Launch Competition Write-up |
Designing a payolad is not as easy as it sounds. And it doesn't even sound easy. The first time my Dad offered me the chance to design one my immediate response was simply, "What the heck is a payload?". After hearing what the project would be about, I started setting up a team to help me in the design and construction of this payload. While I asked about five different people for their help, Sloane and MIchael were the only ones that showed up, or even really responded. We started the first meeting confused but excited. All of us were just finishing up our year at SHP, with just a couple finals left. Carl, Austin, and Bala all met us at my Dad's work, which would eventually become our workshop (thanks again Dad). Bala then proceeded to outline the project to us, setting us a budget and size/weight restrictions. We had to make our payload fit in a five by three tube, and be under two pounds. With our limits set, we immediately threw ourselves into the design stage, which would end up being the hardest step. We thought of cramming flares, gps, or even a helicopter into our payload. After weeks and weeks of refinement however, we learned of the K.I.S.S. principle, (Keep It Simple Stupid), and we decided to just stick with a camera. Sound easy? Well it wasn't. We needed to figure out what angles we wanted, and what camera we could use. We settled on a tiny Muvi camera, about the size of a flash drive, purchased for about seventy bucks. The angles, however, were much trickier. After lots more arguing we finally decided on two: looking down the side of the rocket for take off and then a freefalling sweep after apex. We then placed the camera on the bottom of our payload, and devised a periscope system to allow the rocket to see down. The camera would film the mirror view for the first part of the flight, then when the parachutes deployed the payload would be ripped out with the nosecone and would hopefully film the rest of the rocket falling to earth. That, at least, was the plan. It seemed like every meeting unforseen problems would arise, eating up valuable meeting time. One especially frustrating problem was that with our placement of our first mirror, every time we inserted the payload the edge of the mirror would graze the camera, hitting the power button on the camera and therefore turning it off. We argued for hours on how to fix the situation, not wanting to damage the fragile camera. Our fix was incredible however, as when Sloane was trying to remove the payload from the rocket tube the payload slipped, snapping the mirror in the perfect spot to resolve the problem. The rocket slowly came together however and the weekend of the launch was suddenly upon us. Michael had departed a few weeks earlier, and would therefore miss the launch. So Sloane, Dad, and I loaded up into the car and headed to the Reaction Research Society. After a lengthly tour of Edwards Air Force Base and a long night of camping the launch day had finally arrived. Up first, we headed down to the launch pad to assemble our rocket. More parts came as other team members joined, and by nine thirty we were ready to launch. We headed for the bunker and waited anxiously as the coundown sounded 3....2....1.........nothing. Our rocket sat on the pad, not moving an inch. We came out from the bunker, took the rocket off the launch rail, and soon discovered that the ignition charges had not set off the motor. We then proceeded to make our own ignitors out of black powder and cardboard and again placed the rocket on the pad. The countdown again sounded 3,,,,2,,,,1,,,,,BOOM! The rocket was gone in a flash, quickly ascending to 2500 feet. Then the secondary motor failed to ignite, causing the rocket to stop its flight 10000 feet early. The payload deployed.....but the main chute did not. The secondary stage crashed to the ground, splitting into many different pieces of cardboard. Our payload was safe though, with all footage recovered. It even had a nice soft landing in a bush! |