It's a new year and a new team! Full of optimism, we once again plan to aim for a hot fire test of the workhorse engine this spring semester. Through the team's experience from last year, more realistic goals are being set, and efficiency is the name of the game. The Tartarus squad plans to quickly get the fluid system, controls instrumentation, and standard operating procedure to a static fire ready state and begin testing ASAP. The only obstacle this month is that in-person meetings are forbidden, so progress is a little delayed. Nevertheless, everyone is excited for what the semester has in store.

February was a hot and cold month for the team. At the start of the month the team made huge leaps and bounds in every regard, with progress being made at a staggering rate. The controls system in particular has seen huge improvement with instrument calibrations beginning in earnest. The other side of development was with the testing procedures, where the team successfully performed a low pressure integration test with no hiccups whatsoever. However, in the latter half of the month all operations had to be put on hold due to a team member falling ill with COVID-19. Since Tartarus treats these situations with utmost seriousness, all operations were suspended for 14 days and many team members were quarantined. Luckily, nobody caught the virus and the infected team member recovered without incident.

Through the month of March, the team fully focused on setting up for a potential high pressure integration test. This test would consist of exposing the entire ground system to the nominal operating pressures that the system would see during a typical engine test. The test would be totally inert using nitrogen, and would be a solid indicator that Tartarus is ready for a hot fire test. Setting up for this milestone test saw the team performing many low pressure integration tests and ironing out any kinks in the standard operating procedure for the high pressure integration test. This effort was plagued with electrical and software issues, which stuck with the team until April. But, the more challenges, the more opportunities to learn and grow.

With April comes the end of the academic semester! The end is in sight for the spring semester at UAH and for Tartarus's activities for the semester. The highlights of the month are the fact that the vast majority of technical issues were fixed, and that the standard operating procedure for the high pressure test was brought into its final revisions. However, the team did not achieve its primary goal of the semester, which was to fire the engine for the first time. This is not the first failure to reach this deadline that the team has had, but it still stings. Going into summer the team is determined to hit the ground running in the fall, and with the staggering progress made throughout spring of 2021, prospects for firing the engine in the fall look good. All in all, the spring semester was incredibly productive for Tartarus and the team is just as optimistic as ever.

May marks the beginning of the 5th summer the team has seen.  However, this summer we're changing our tune a bit. Instead of focusing on design like we have in previous years, we are focusing on setting ourselves up for success in the fall. This mostly means that over the summer we will be drafting essential presentations and procedures which will help facilitate a high pressure test in the early months of the fall semester. There's a lot of work to be done but we're looking forward to the future!

The month of June has no real interesting developments. Tartarus is simply slowly but surely writing procedures and presentations. This part of liquid propulsion is very underappreciated, especially for college teams. While the process of writing this documentation might seem dull, the world of procedure is very complex and very essential to any engineer. With that said, Tartarus is doing our best wherever we can.

In July, the team had nearly finished all of its clerical work. With this mostly out of the way, we began looking towards the future. Goals were discussed as well as how to facilitate those goals, and the team believes we will be very well prepared for fall. Our main concern is hitting the ground running and getting to a hot fire, and it seems like we will be able to do just that. Fingers crossed! 🤞 

August marks the team's return to good ol' in-person learning. First,  in the first half of August, the team must kick it into high gear to polish all of the procedures and other documentation written over the summer. Then, the team will start meeting regularly in-person once more for a productive and fast-paced semester. Our main goal for August is to get totally ready to present a test readiness review for our high pressure test to industry professionals. This will involve a lot of in-depth information so the reviewers can certify that we know what we're getting ourselves into. Overall, the month of August was incredibly productive and a great start to a semester promising to be packed with progress.

September was one of the best months for the team EVER. The most notable achievement this month was the completion of a high pressure integration test, a test in which system pressures are driven up to our maximum allowable working pressure (MAWP) of 800psi. This test took place in five stages. First, the low pressure leak check, second a 300 psi test, third a 450 psi test, fourth a 600 psi test, and lastly an 800 psi test. Stepping up the pressure gradually like this ensures that all hazards related to failures at high pressures are minimized. On the testing day everything went smoothly, and all tests were successful! With this milestone out of the way very little stands between the team and a hot fire of the engine. 💪 

In October, the team is finalizing preparations for the first ever static fire. The timeline for the test is either late November or early January. Everyone is getting excited and all hands are on deck! However, before jumping into the test there are a few important events first: a dress rehearsal for the static fire using an inert fluid, and a week to fully clean the system up to liquid oxygen standard. These two preliminary steps are once again either being completed in November or January, right on the correct timeline! Overall October is the gateway to a lot of exciting Tartarus activities and the team is amped.

In November, the team attempted to put in crucial orders to the progression of the static fire campaign. Due to shortages and end of the semester difficulties, we were not able to get the orders through. Instead, we were able to get a lot of the logistical and crucial documentation ready for a static fire campaign in the spring.

Although we were not able to achieve static fire this year, we learned a lot of important things and were able to complete crucial documents for the static fire campaign in the Spring.The Engine subteam has made some major breakthroughs on a new design for the flight engine. After the first static fire, the teams plan on testing and making a new engine to optimize the performance needed to achieve our goal of 30,000 ft.