About

Welcome to the MARS-I project: Mudders Aspiring to Reach Space – Version I. We are a team of 85 students at Harvey Mudd College building a rocket that will reach the Karman Line: the edge of space, located at 100 kilometers above the Earth's sea level. This rocket – including the fuel composition for the rocket’s motor, the custom electronics, and all of the mechanical components – are being designed, manufactured, and launched by Harvey Mudd students.

Overview

To achieve this goal, we will employ a “boosted-dart” design, inspired by the Super Loki boosted dart, a design that has been previously used to reach altitudes of greater than 100 kilometers. The boosted-dart rocket will have two stages: the booster and the dart. The booster contains the rocket’s motor and fuel, and it will be jettisoned after the motor’s burnout. The dart is unpowered and has a smaller aerodynamic profile that will reach apogee at approximately 100 kilometers.

We are attempting to accomplish a feat that many may think is impossible for a college of fewer than 900 students. Our team includes students from all class years and majors, and we seek to create a diverse team with ample opportunity for students to learn outside of the traditional academic setting. Since the start of the project in September 2018, the project has grown from 25 students to 85, encompassing about 10% of the student body at Harvey Mudd.

Message from MARS' Founder:

The MARS-I project represents the amazing innovation and dedication that Harvey Mudd students possess. As founder and project manager, I am honored to lead more than 20 students that have dedicated themselves to my vision of reaching the edge of space. MARS-I has students that represent every class year and almost every major that Harvey Mudd offers.

The goal of the MARS-I project is to design and build a rocket that will reach the Karman Line, which is 100 kilometers above sea level and considered the edge of space. My vision is not to launch only one time and move on; my vision is to inspire other Harvey Mudd students to pursue more ventures in experimental rocketry in the future. These ventures could take the form of launching a hybrid rocket to space, competing in high-power rocketry competitions, and even designing and building a liquid rocket engine.

To achieve the goal of reaching space for MARS-I, we will be using a boosted dart design similar to the Super Loki boosted dart. We are modeling our design after the Super Loki because it is a proven method to lift a small payload to space. It is also one of the least expensive designs available, because it allows us to have a relatively large-profile booster that imparts a high amount of impulse to a smaller-profile sustainer (dart) which will coast, unpowered, separate from the booster. This allows the payload to coast to its final altitude with a decreased amount of aerodynamic drag.

We are looking to launch from either the Black Rock desert in Northern Nevada or Spaceport America in New Mexico. The spaceport is our preferred launch site, because it has (as advertised) 6,000 square miles of clear airspace for vertical launch 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it has a hard facility with a launch command center. As an alternate, the Black Rock desert will serve our launch purposes if launching from Spaceport America is not approved or if it is not within our budget.

MARS-I was started in the fall semester of 2018 as a part of the rocketry club at Harvey Mudd, the Mudd Amateur Rocketry Club (MARC). The original plan was to build a solid-fuel rocket, fueled by potassium nitrate and sorbitol (KNSB). But toward the end of the semester, we were able to have a conversation with an engineer who builds his own solid-fuel rocket motors, named Jerry Irvine, who advised us that we would have a higher chance of success with an ammonium perchlorate oxidized fuel with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) as the fuel and binder. Heeding Jerry’s advice, we switched our fuel from KNSB the AP/HTPB. The fall semester was dedicated to design, calculations, and getting initial funding from the Shanahan-endowed Student Guided Project Fund (a fund run by Harvey Mudd College) and we succeeded in being granted $10,000 for the project.

As of this writing, we are currently in the spring semester of 2019. This semester is dedicated to building and testing, and we plan to have the fully-built rocket by the end of March or the beginning of April. Although this semester is dedicated to building and testing, we do aim to launch to the Karman Line by April 28^th, but in order to do this, we must have the proper data needed to submit launch waiver applications to the FAA and an application to Tripoli Rocketry Association’s Class 3 Review Board for insurance purposes. Launching by April 28^th is going to prove to be very difficult and we want to approach this project with the utmost responsibility and professionalism, so if need be, we will postpone the launch to the fall semester of 2019.

Again, I am honored that so many bright young minds would gather themselves behind my vision. I hope that this vision will be handed down for years to come, and that Harvey Mudd students will continue to show why Harvey Mudd continues to be ranked number one for its undergraduate engineering program.

Roger Hooper

MARS Founder

Class of 2019