USC’s rocket propulsion lab for undergraduates has test fired an 8”
R-class rocket:
https://mach5lowdown.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/graveler-ii-stats/
They intend to use this for a suborbital flight to reach the 100 km von
Karman line for space. Anyone know the mass of the rocket? It may be
comparable to the ca. 200 kg rocket made by Cesaroni for the SpaceLoft
suborbital rocket.
I think once they succeed at this, breaking through the “not possible”
thinking, it will be recognized that with staging small orbital rockets
also are possible.
I like the safety steps the team uses for production of the large amounts
of APCP propellant:
https://twitter.com/uscrpl/status/958427730231533568?s=21
Another university team is aiming for suborbital space using liquid-fueled
rockets:
https://mach5lowdown.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/student-race-to-space/
And this company has shown rocket stability using engine gimbaling is
possible even with small solid rockets:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9UqXtIlHfzU
Bob Clark
On Sunday, November 12, 2017, Robert Clark <rgregoryclark@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I know of a few university teams aiming for a 100 km altitude suborbital
flight:
Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS):
This Amateur Rocket Club Is Determined to Get to Orbit
If lawyers will let them.
By Rollin Bishop
Aug 5, 2015
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a16722/
hobbyist-rocket-space-race/
University of California at Berkeley:
PROJECT KARMAN: 1 Launch, 10 Months, 100 Kilometers to Space!
https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/7450
Boston University:
BU student rocketeers aim to put hybrid rocket into space.
By Carolyn Y. Johnson GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 03, 2015
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/03/for-student-
rocketeers-big-launch-would-lift-school-profile/
6gLkcFntwPCgkWYf8QP96L/story.html
and USC's Rocket Propulsion Lab:
http://www.uscrpl.com/
At least one, the USC team, has reached 100K+ feet. They do all have the
capability to reach 100K+ feet altitude using solid motors. But the thing
is, once you reach 100K+ feet, an additional straight off-the-shelf amateur
solid motor added as an upper stage will allow you to reach the 100 km
Karman line.
None of the teams are planning to do it this way however. This is
unfortunate because it would be the easiest approach, and more importantly
it would provide a key enabling technology for an actual orbital rocket in
being able to do staging at high altitude, near vacuum conditions, where
fins are ineffective for maintaining stability.
I like though the PSAS team does want to aim even higher for an orbital
flight. And I like that the Berkeley team is encouraging other universities
in reaching for a 100 km suborbital flight.
In regards to the question of maintaining continuity and progressing
further with each incoming group of students, I think this is doable when
the professors already know how to accomplish the task. This will certainly
be the case in universities with strong aerospace engineering departments,
where many professors will have experience in the industry in actually
designing and constructing rockets.
I mentioned before the case of the Maverick Civilian Space Foundation
where a group of professional engineers has instructed both university and
high school students in building their own two-stage APCP rocket:
[AR] Re: Amateur solid rockets for cube-sat launch to orbit
From: Robert Clark <rgregoryclark@xxxxxxxxx>
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2017 14:22:12 -0400
https://www.freelists.org/post/arocket/Amateur-solid-
rockets-for-cubesat-launch-to-orbit,108
What I'm envisioning is that a university or universities in
collaboration have several different groups of students working, at the
same time, on different aspects of solving the problems involved in
producing a solid motor orbital rocket*, *with professors instructing the
students in their own areas of expertise. For instance, the Maverick group
has shown you can have students mix and load hundreds of pounds of APCP in
just a few months. And USC's team has shown you can get students to
construct their own filament winding machine to produce carbon composite
casings.
What still needs to be done is creating spin-stabilized upper stages. How
to do this using rotating platforms has been known since the 60's. The only
question is how much extra weight this would add to the rocket. It might be
that the professor and his undergraduate team working on this problem will
be able to find simpler and lighter weight methods of accomplishing it, but
certainly creating the spin platform is doable by amateurs.
As an inducement to universities doing this there is the Google Lunar
X-Prize. The multimillion dollar prize would of course go to the
universities, quite a funding boost to their science departments.
Suppose the GLXP prize deadline is not made, could it still be
financially beneficial for universities to back this? I mentioned before
the radically reduced production costs when you have zero-labor cost for
the solid motor orbital rockets resulting in potentially large profits for
the builders. But universities are supposed to be not-for-profit
corporations. One solution might be to have the rocket production spun-off
to separate companies with the universities being paid licensing fees which
would go further to their educational mission.
Bob Clark
On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Ed LeBouthillier <codemonky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
As a college professor doing rocketry and balloon related competitionsfor about 10 years,
I have to agree with Ed Wranosky. There is some knowledge passed butnot that much. It only
occurs with students doing the project at least two years. So as asenior design project, it
is very difficult to build upon previous work. Possible and have seensome done, but not easy.
And would not base my reputation upon a very aggressive project onstudent derived knowledge
passed down over the years. Grad students, if I had them, now that's adifferent story. :)
Thanks for your expertise on the matter.
So, if I'm understanding you properly, you're saying that the best way
that something like
Bob is advocating is if it done with a mix of undergraduate and graduate
students?
The thinking being that it would allow technical expertise to persist
across changes of
undergraduate students and provide a more consistent means of documenting
technical
knowledge/expertise.
I noticed that a number of universities have research institutes to
operate more complicated
projects. For example, Hawaii University organized "The Research
Corporation of the University
of Hawaii" to organize multiple projects such as their Hawaii Space
Flight Laboratory.
Do you think that a similar kind of organization would be necessary for
the kind of activity
Bob is recommending? Of course, this would probably require buy-in from
the university staff
for a project with the kind of scope that Bob is recommending.
The particular university that would support that kind of activity would
have to see it in their
strategic interest to support that kind of an endeavor. It's not beyond
reality that such
kinds of projects might be supported. The University of Arizona supports
projects for space exploration.
In particular, they operate a number of deep-space projects (e.g. Osiris
Rex [ http://osirisrex.arizona.edu/ ;]).
Someone would have to put together a proposal of that program (vision
statements, descriptions), advocate
it to the university staff, coordinate funding and other resources, put
together a program. There are a
lot of steps involved, I would imagine.
Bob, do you think that there already exist programs/institutes at various
universities which would support
programs as you're advocating? I know that there are a number of
universities with propulsion labs and such;
they would seem like the ideal candidates for programs like you're
advocating.
