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State of the Project
State of the Project
April 30, 2020
When you last heard from the Project LARSS team, the propellant grains had been mixed and the body tubes were finished being sanded. While we have been dealing with the onset of COVID-19 along with the rest of the country, we are happy to report that we have made additional progress with the rocket!
Regarding the control system, the controller's software has been completely written. We have also received a custom circuit board for the controller, which will allow for reliable connections between the CPU, sensors, and servos during flight. Check out the diagram on our Media page! We have also 3D printed the flight canards plus a few backups, in case some of them break. Additionally, we've 3D printed the two bulkheads that sandwich the controller's servo motors and provide a mounting base for the circuit board. All that's left to do is finish attaching the controller's components to the circuit board, and the system will be ready for flight!
In March, just as SLU and the whole country was beginning to shut down, we were able to perform wind tunnel testing with our scale model of Adiona. The purpose of this testing was to image the vortices shed from the canards at the front of Adiona and determine their dissipation characteristics. If the vortices did not dissipate before reaching the aft fins, it could cause structural problems for Adiona. The testing performed showed that the vortices dissipate very quickly under the speeds tested, fading away well before the vortices reach the aft fins. Unfortunately, the speeds tested in the wind tunnel are not representative of some of the high speeds to be experienced during the rocket's flight. While we don't know for certain how the vortices will dissipate during flight, we are confident they will not adversely affect the rocket due to the ample distance between the canards and the fins.
Structurally, the rocket is almost completely finished. After the body tubes were sanded down, slots were cut in to the lower airframe for the fin can. The fin can holds the four aft fins within the rocket and holds the mounting tube for the motor. Additionally, the internal avionics bay for the coupler section has been completed. This avionics bay will hold a GoPro camera, for video recording, and two Perfectflite Strattologger altimeters which control the deployment of the parachutes. The only outstanding task is drilling 4 holes in the upper airframe to allow the canards to attach to the servos held within. At that point, Adiona will be ready for final integration before flight!
Additionally, all grains for Adiona's motors have been cored, weighed, and labeled. We assembled one of these motors and successfully completed a static fire of the system on April 19 (check out the Media page for a video). The experimental data collected during this static fire came back with significant differences from our theoretical data. After consulting with our propulsion mentor, Lt. Col. Bryan Sparkman, these differences can be attributed to two things. First, erosive burning within the motor changed the shape of our thrust curve. Second, a misconfiguration of the test stand likely resulted in the load cell reading less of an impulse than anticipated. After examining the data, Lt. Col. Sparkman is confident that our motors will produce the required levels of performance to reach the desired apogee. Now, we just need to assemble the other grains into full motors and we will be ready for launch!
Some other minor things that need to be done before flight testing: static canard evaluation and black powder charge testing. These are minor tests we need to perform, one on the integrated canard system and the other on the integrated rocket, and must be performed before we can proceed with flight testing.
As for the flight tests, we are in a holding pattern until lockdowns begin to lift across the country. Optimistically, we will be able to flight test the rocket in late May or early June. Unfortunately, this final test of our system will not happen until the semester has finished. Rest assured, we are committed to seeing Adiona fly some time in the near future, it is just a matter of when!
BIG UPDATE!!!
BIG UPDATE!!!
February 27, 2020
Over the weekend Alex Ambro, Andrew Riddle, and Jonathan Schaefer, were able to mix the grains for our solid rocket motors. They were able to prepare enough for a test fire in the coming weeks and four for our launches come end of March. Special thanks to the SLU Rocket Propulsion Lab for allowing us to join them during their mixing session.
Addtionally, we have made great progress on our rocket over the weekend. The rocket body tubes were final sanded down enough to dry assemble. We were also able to assemble our fin can.
Gearing Up for the Wind Tunnel
Gearing Up for the Wind Tunnel
January 30, 2020
Presenting our wind tunnel model! This baby can do everything roll, pitch, and yaw. Soon it will be flying in SLU's low-speed wind tunnel getting us one step closer to the big launch!
Project LARSS Takes Shape
Project LARSS Takes Shape
January 13, 2020
Project LARSS began to take shape over winter break as we filament wound our booster airframe! A big thanks to the SLU Rocket Propulsion Lab for allowing us to use their newly expanded filament winder.
We are also greatly anticipating wind tunnel testing as we near completion for our scaled-down model rocket!
Two Weeks to Go!
Two Weeks to Go!
November 12, 2019
Hello all!
In just the blink of an eye, we now have less than two weeks left in our fundraising campaign! The Project LARSS team would like to take a moment to extend a sincere thank you to all who have generously given to our project. Without your support, our project would be impossible.
So what have we been up to the past few weeks? Well, quite a bit! First off, we have settled on our stability control system of choice: actuated canards! This system will involve a set of 4 canards, or miniature fins, situated at the front of the rocket that will be controlled by servos hooked up to a flight computer. After a good deal of research, we decided that this was the best system for us for many reasons, such as reusability and ease of manufacture.
Another major design decision we have recently made is a slight change of our anticipated mission. Instead of performing one high altitude flight with a larger motor, we have decided to aim for multiple smaller flights on smaller motors. The goal now is to fly the rocket 4 times to an altitude of 3,000-4,000 feet Above Ground Level. This is a major change to our project, but it will ultimately give us more opportunity to test our stability control system and show that it functions as intended, which has been the goal of Project LARSS since the beginning.
With this semester rapidly coming to a close, we are currently in the midst of making further design decisions and preliminary calculations to show our design will fulfill our requirements. These calculations incorporate every aspect of our design, from estimations of the total drag of the rocket, to motor design simulations and how much lift our canards will be generating to control the orientation of the rocket. We are also developing budgets, both for the cost of components and the weight of components, as it is incredibly important to have an accurate understanding of both how much each part of the rocket will weigh, and of course how much it will cost. All of this is in anticipation of our end of semester presentation, which we begin practicing in two short weeks!
We certainly still have a lot of work cut out for us, but thanks to the support you have all generously provided the Project LARSS team believes it is achievable! Thank you once again to all who have donated, and please consider making a donation if you haven't already!
Additionally, check out the images below for a snapshot of our most recent presentation on Project LARSS!
Week 1 Update
Week 1 Update
October 16, 2019
Hello all! First off, thank you once again to all who have donated to our project so far. Your support will enable us to build the best stability system possible. Our campaign is off to a fantastic start, and we on the Project LARSS team are very excited for where the next 38 days take us! Given that we are now about a week into our fundraising campaign, we wanted to give a progress update on where we are with Project LARSS.
Over the past week, we dove further into the conceptual design of our rocket. As the name suggests, this stage of analysis is all about brainstorming concepts that fit the requirements we have put so much effort into developing. At this stage, we have a concept for the rocket test bed well developed, and are in the process of formally deciding what method of active stability we will be using (more on that to come). Please take a look at the mockup we have of the rocket so far, attached below!
In the meantime, we had the pleasure on Tuesday of listening to two guest lectures with the rest of our senior design class. The first, on how to develop successful conceptual design, was from Mr. Bill Carrier. Mr. Carrier has had an illustrious career in the aerospace industry, working with Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks division before moving to McDonnell Douglas and then transitioning to Boeing. He gave us some valuable insight into the conceptual design process, as well as senior design in general, as he shared some common problems he has seen senior design teams encounter in the past. Our second guest lecturer was from Dr. Doug Schwaab, an adjunct professor at SLU who is also one of the mentors for SLURPL. Dr. Schwaab gave us an overview on how to conduct trade studies, a tool we will be using soon to compare our different concepts and determine which one we will be pursuing.
We still have quite a bit of work to do this semester, but are poised to make some large strides on our design when we return from Fall Break next week. Thank you again for your support, and please keep checking back here for progress updates!
Welcome & Progress Update
Welcome & Progress Update
October 11, 2019
Hello, all, and welcome to the start of our 45-day long fundraising campaign for Project LARSS. We have set quite a goal for ourselves, but with your support, we believe it is within reach!
Progress So Far
As senior design is a year long project, we are already well underway in the design process for our rocket and stability system. At this point, the bulk of our effort has been developing requirements for our system. Think of these as the criteria we will use to evaluate whether or not the project was successful at the end of the year.
As part of the requirement development process, we built a Concept of Operations (CONOPS for short). This is a graphical aid that summarizes our most important requirements in one conceptual rocket flight. The CONOPS gives a glimpse into the more technical aspects of our requirements, and can be found below!
Some FAQs regarding the CONOPS:
AGL stands for Above Ground Level
Apogee is the highest point the rocket reaches during its flight
We deploy a smaller, drogue parachute before the larger main parachute to minimize how far the rocket drifts in the wind
Please continue to check back here as we give updates on the progress of the fundraising campaign and the progress of our senior design project over the coming weeks. Also, if you have any questions about donations or the project in general, please don't hesitate to reach out to a member of the Project LARSS team. Thank you all for your support, and we hope that you are looking forward to the next few weeks as much as we are!
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