I'm an Astronomer! (Oops!)

See the pretty picture of the Iris Nebula that I took? This is the result of endless hours of work. It goes with a 15-page report about the photometry of the surrounding stars, the flux ratios in different bands of the nebula, and other random science stuff. I enjoyed this class, but I know now that astronomy is not my cup of tea. It's a rather passive form of space exploration, and I'd much rather work on the vehicle to get there.

Special thanks to my lab partners, Mikaela and Mia.

Rockoon Update

Our final project for the semester is to assemble our design into a very large poster (it's like four feet wide). I'd like to share it with you! But instead of just posting a little picture of it, I've re-written it in post form so you can actually read it. That said, here it is:

ISU Rockoon

Goals/Objectives

The objective of the Rockoon Project is to build a fully reusable, economic, lightweight and stable sounding rocket to be assisted by a high-altitude balloon. The rocket will be launched near the stratosphere, to an altitude of at least 140,000 ft.  

The Rockoon will be powered by a L-class impulse rocket engine to carry video and communication systems (allowing the entire rocket flight to be live video-streamed), GPS tracking system, navigation-sensor systems, telemetry system and any payloads of interest to be used for experimental flights. Recovery systems will be used for safe return of the rocket and platform to the ground, making the Rockoon system reusable.

History

The concept of a Rockoon was first developed in 1949 by the Aerobee Rocket engineering crew and consisted of a sounding rocket that was launched from a balloon, rather than from the ground to achieve higher altitudes. James Van Allen was the first to use the rocket-balloon combination to study the atmosphere in 1952. In 1953 Rockoons fired off Newfoundland detected the first hint of radiation belts surrounding Earth. The low-cost Rockoon technique was later used by the Office of Naval Research and The University of Iowa research groups in 1953-55 and 1957, from ships in sea between Boston and Thule, Greenland.

Launch Platform Design

The launch platform is essentially the fundamental component of a Rockoon system, as it is the part the actually connects high powered rocketry with high altitude ballooning.  The platform needs to be durable and lightweight, but able to house the rocket and electronics, and be able to successfully launch the rocket.  The platform will be a “cannon” like design connected to a multiple balloon system, with the rocket sitting in the middle of the platform surrounded by three side rails.  These side rails will hold the rocket in place while it’s being towed to launch altitude, along with keeping the rocket stable while it reaches a sufficient launch velocity.  The platform will also house electronics that will allow us to track the platform and actually communicate with the rocket prior to motor ignition.

Electronics

The electronic systems for the launch platform have to perform four basic functions: (1) Monitor the motion of the launch platform, (2) Receive command to launch the rocket, (3) Track the launch platform via GPS, and (4) after ignition of the rocket, cut-down from the balloons so that the platform would return to Earth. The first flight of the launch platform will be to test the reliability of the launch platform and electronics without the launch of a rocket. Several cameras will monitor the motion of the balloons and the platform. An onboard accelerometer and gyro sensor will record motion data to an onboard micro-SD card. These functions, along with the ignition and balloon cut-down will be controlled by an Arduino MCU, and are depicted schematically in the figure below.

Rocket Design

The rocket design is based off of a carbon fiber airframe that was passed down to us from our predecessors. It will be a minimum diameter rocket that is just over eight feet tall made completely of carbon fiber. The nose cone has a metal tip to help burst through balloons if needed.  This rocket will be flown on a Cesaroni 4-grain, level-two L motor.  Payloads will consist of a GPS, CO2 pressure ejection system for recovery,  an accelerometer, and a camera with the possibility of a live video stream.  Initial RockSim simulations predict a maximum altitude of 157,000 feet, and a maximum velocity of 2427 feet per second (Mach 2.4). 

The design for this rocket has a center of gravity of 76.7 inches and a center of pressure of 91.8 inches, giving a static margin of 4.8 caliber. If the launch were to occur from the ground this margin would be too high, but since the launch will occur at higher altitudes, the perturbing effects will be much less effective due to the lower air density. Due to launching at high altitudes, bigger than normal fins will be used and an exit velocity of about 150 feet per second from the platform will be needed for stable flight.

Flight Performance Analysis (RockSim)

Lunch with Bill Nye

So I was minding my own business in the computer lab one day (like I usually do), when in walks the president of the Iowa State Space Society (pictured above with her arm around Bill). She asks me and another student who is also part of the ISSS club what we were doing on Friday at noon. "Nothing?" she says. "Well then you two are going to eat lunch with Bill Nye."

Fun stuff like that happens at college.

So some back story: Last May at the Space Tech Expo in L.A. one of our members met Bill and struck up a conversation. Bill wanted to meet the leaders of the club, so when he came to Iowa State this week for the opening event of Engineer's Week, we had the opportunity to eat lunch with him. It was great.

So he told us a lot of interesting and funny stories, we talked about science, space exploration, the Planetary Society (which he is now the CEO of), and of course, the Iowa State Space Society. I wished I had a recorder in my pocket or something. Then I'd be able to write down what we talked about.

At the end after we took a group picture with him, I had him sign my motor casing right next to Kari Byron's signature (Mythbusters).

So that was the highlight of my week.

College Halfway Point.

Being at the midpoint of any endeavor yields some interesting perspectives. Admittedly, I may be here as long as five years, but the view is still the same. I have come a long way from where I started and I have a long way to go until the finish line.

My journey started out strong freshman year. I got some good grades, met some great friends and had a lot of wonderful experiences. I'm glad I took initiative to get involved on campus and in aerospace projects such as USLI. 

One trend that I've noticed, however, is that each semester my performance is a little lower. Not sure if I'm decreasing in intelligence or just classes getting harder. But this semester I intend to break that trend. I know last year the biggest problem was probably the same problem Alexander the Great experienced in that I spread myself way too thin over classes, projects, and other activities. So this semester is going to be a study on living a simple lifestyle in order to keep the main thing the main thing.

And what is the main thing?

I'm looking ahead to next summer (maybe even this spring) in which I fully intend to land an aerospace internship! All of this year will be spent mainly in preparation for this goal. This includes, but not limited to, getting good grades, making a lot of contacts, talking to professors, getting recommendations, applying to positions, making phone calls, etc. In all of this, I will at least make room for one project, such as USLI.

Recreation and entertainment are important, but need to know they're place at the bottom of the totem pole. For instance, it's a good way to bond with friends and roommates. After I moved in to the apartment, two of my roommates and I went shooting and ate dinner at one of my roommates home, since it was his birthday. It was a great way to start the semester off. 

For some reason after the end of last semester I just had to stop and wonder what it was that I wanted in life. It's funny how I can ask that question and also know exactly where I'm going with my career at the same time. For the past six years I have known that I want to be an aerospace engineer, but suddenly I began to get the inklings of a question on why. Just because it's fun? Because I think it's an important contribution to humanity? Because I want to earn a lot of money and do a lot of cool things in life? What exactly is the point? What would my life look like in ten, twenty years from now? Who will my friends be? Will I have a family? What will I be working towards, fighting for and living for?

And I can just shrug all these questions off now, because, if nothing else, I'll always be living for the glory of God. And if that doesn't make sense to you, I hope and pray that it will someday.

My homey work station.

From left: Me, Darin, Nick.

USLI -- Interesting Developments

I just want to say, the higher the barrier, the epic-er the win. Or at least, the stronger you get.

Based on the early deployment of our payload, we are being required by NASA to conduct another test launch. No big deal.

Anyway, I am going to have no life outside of USLI and the occasional studying for the next... for a while.

USLI -- Full Scale Test Launch Success! (Mostly)

Last Saturday, five guys from Iowa State's USLI team made the trek down to Princeton, Illinois to do a full-scale test launch of our system.

In summary, the launch was 90% successful, despite the 19mph winds! The rocket reached a maximum apogee of 4653 ft. (arching into the wind, of course). The problem occurred when the drogue parachute deployed. Shear pins were a very important thing to put in our payload! The payload came out at apogee, and drifted about seven miles down range. We were very fortunate to have placed a tracking device in it, or we'd still be out there looking for it. The dual deployment on the launch vehicle worked beautifully, and that 18ft. main parachute gave us a nice, gentle touchdown. It was so good, in fact, that it kept dragging the rocket and we were having considerable difficulty catching up with it.

The payload was not in its quadcopter configuration for this launch. The camera was not transmitting live video feed, either. The goal for the payload was just to take pretty pictures and measure the efficacy of the deployment system. It did its job and exposed a major flaw (shear pins).

Our big L1115 motor.

Installing ejection charges.

The rocket waiting for launch on the pad. I think it looks really cool with the transparent nose cone and the translucent fins.

Liftoff!

View from apogee. Look close and you can see the rocket.

The rocket after it landed. (It picked up about 50lbs of dirt inside the body tube).

And now for some ONBOARD VIDEO!!

USLI -- Build Update

Today is the last bit of respite I have until spring break, so I decided to sneak in a little blog post! So here it is, enjoy it.

Cutting fin slots.

Dry fit. Admiring the magnitude.

Epoxying the Bejeebers out of the forward centering ring.

Most of the payload parts laid out before assembly.

Structure of the quadcopter.

Filleting the fin roots.

DC motor mount. One down, four to go.

What are they all looking at?

AHhhhhh!

Vice President Biden Visiting Howe Hall, ISU

It was such a late notice. Last Sunday we received a cryptic email from our adviser informing us that the Make to Innovate (M:2:I) labs would be closed all week this week. This was horrible timing since we have to finish the USLI rocket by its March 10 test launch date. The email didn't even explain why, except that "it would be revealed the following day."

The closed labs didn't deter us from getting work done. We simply worked where we could. We're actually making great progress this week. The rocket structure is 90% completed, and the payload parts are coming together as well.

Still, we wondered what on Earth the big deal was. People in suits were all over the place, and so were people with guns, and other official stuff. Finally it came out that VP Biden was coming to Iowa State to give an "America Built to Last" speech, and to tour some of the undergraduate research/projects. That's why all the labs were closed down: the department was scrambling to sweep all the messy-looking stuff under the rug and clean up.

Honestly, it reminds me of having to clean my room before doing something fun with my family as a kid. It gets done in the blink of an eye... but don't open the closet. Oh, and don't look under the bed. That's exactly what went down: everything got crammed into one tiny little room, while only selected projects were displayed meticulously in immaculate array.

It's mildly dishonest, because it's not an accurate representation of what goes on. It's also mildly ironic, because Biden's visit is to bolster engineering and productivity... and here we have to shut down all the labs and nobody can do any work.

We were all joking around about pranks we could play... however, we had great difficulty thinking of anything that didn't result in getting pinned to the ground by Secret Service.

Anyway, look for a new post in the next few days about recent build sessions!

USLI -- Fiberglass Layups

We are trying something new this year, attempting our own composite layups of both the body tubes and the fins.

The approach for the body tubes was simple: Just wrap the fiberglass around the tubes, rubbing the epoxy into it and rubbing the air bubbles and defects out along the way. We made five layers on the body tubes, and they turned out fairly well.

For the fins, we are laying up sheets of 1/8th inch fiberglass. This was quite simple, but labor-intensive. It involved cutting out many layers of fiberglass cloth, stacking them neatly inside vacuum bags, sucking all the air out, and then injecting the epoxy, impregnating it into the fiberglass weave. It was quite the experience, and only took a couple hours. Now all we need to do is cut the fins out and sand the airfoils into them.

2011 Recapitulation

Way back in the beginning of the year I came up with three "Big, Fun Scary Adventures," referred to herein as "BFS Adventures." The first of these was a concrete goal: to obtain my level-2 certification for high-power rocketry. The story of this adventure was a long and comical one:

My first attempt was in June, using my rocket called "Stinger." I used a Cesaroni J285, which is a very small J-motor. For some reason, the flight was just a flop:



Next month I managed to put together an entirely new rocket (can't remember the name of it). It was a big, galumphing rocket made from thick cardboard tubes. The idea was to build heavy so that the rocket didn't go very high so I didn't need dual-deployment. That idea came back to bite me:



So I figured that the third time is usually the charm, and I came out next month with this rocket, which is the sustainer stage of a multistage project.



I figured that I had failed, but we kinda had to rush off at the end of the launch, and didn't talk much with the certifying member afterward. But a few weeks later I got my card in the mail, which read "cert level 2." So that's the story of how I got my level 2 certification.

My second adventure was less than exciting. I set a specific goal to "earn at least $5000 by working and at least $5000 of non-ISU scholarships." This one was also a success. I failed to find an internship, so I worked hard on a sod farm all summer, some weeks working 60 hours! It was quite the arduous ordeal but I earned about $4500 for school. Previously during the spring semester I had earned about $800 from working at Target. So there's my $5000 by working. And I got a pretty nice engineering scholarship for $8000 which helped me stay in school!

My last BFS Adventure was rather vague. "Invent something cool," I said. I'm counting the payload we built for USLI for this adventure. While it was not entirely my invention, I learned a lot of great stuff from being on that team and helped develop pretty cool technology for it. All of the structural components were designed and built by me. A lot of the programming was me, too. One thing is irrefutable: It was cool.

So there's 2011 in a nutshell. Of course, that leaves out 99% of my life, but now you have the 1% worth talking about.

I sense 2012 has some adventures in store that will make 2011 look like a walk in the park. Bring it on!

University Student Launch Initiative -- We Made It Again!

Our proposal was accepted, so Iowa State is now one of 42 universities competing in USLI.

The University Student Launch Initiative (USLI) is a NASA competition for universities across the country to design, build and launch a high-power rocket to an altitude of 5280 feet (1 mile). The rocket is designed to carry a scientific or engineering payload of the team's own creation. The launch is down in Huntsville Alabama near the Marshall Space Flight Center every April. Throughout the school year each team must submit four reports; the initial proposal, the preliminary design review (PDR), the critical design review (CDR), the flight readiness review (FRR) and finally the post-launch assessment review (PLAR). Other requirements are to create and up-keep a team website, and to conduct educational outreach activities on space and rocketry, or other scientific or engineering related disciplines.

Last year I signed on to the project as an exciting activity for my freshman year at Iowa State. It was such a good experience that this year I am co-leading the project.

We began meeting in early September to discuss what the project was going to be about this year. The payload concept had to be decided first, because it would dictate what sort of launch vehicle would be able to take it to a mile. There were many concepts proposed, including the following:

• Self-retrieving rocket (almost a joke, really)
• Load cells on fins/other protrusions to measure drag
• Deploy a rover on landing (similar to Arizona last year)
• Reconnaissance controlled descent vehicle

It was clear that we wanted to expand on last year's project and do a controlled descent vehicle, but with a twist, using the payload as a video surveillance platform to observe the ground. Our main concern was that a parachute recovery system was going to rock/sway/spin too much, so we began to explore other options such as helicopter recovery.

Somewhere along the line, somebody suggested powering the helicopter and going for a full-fledged UAV. This suggestion was initially met with some skepticism, since it would greatly magnify the complexity of the system.

Our current plan is to go for a quadcopter system, with hinges on the four deployment arms so that the payload can fit snugly into the rocket body. The nose cone will be part of the payload; a clear plastic hemispherical dome. The camera will be on a pan and tilt system using a motor and servo, and will transmit live HD video to a ground tracking station.

One of the benefits of this option is that the user can keep an eye in the sky for as long as the battery will last, which would be much longer than the time it would take for the payload to fall, retarded only by the free-spinning helicopter blades. This extra time-aloft increases the return on the significant cost of rocket-assisted deployment.

The launch vehicle concept is currently to construct it from fiberglass with a 7.7 inch outer diameter. The motor we currently plan to use is a Cesaroni L1115, which would take a 10-lb payload approximately 5500 feet. It's always good to design the rocket to fly higher than it's supposed to, because the rocket tends to be heavier than RockSim predicts and have a higher drag coefficient than RockSim predicts. Also, after the test launch in mid-February, if it is determined that the rocket will fly too high, additional mass can be added to bring the altitude down to the desired level.

One concept for the launch vehicle is to use air-brakes to keep the rocket from going over a mile. Judging from success rates of attempts in the past, this would be a very challenging design feature to implement. We're currently exploring the feasibility of this option.

We are all very excited about this project. I think we have a good plan, and a lot of good, fresh ideas. The team of roughly 12-15 students has a nice variety of skills, majors, experience, etc.

More updates will follow regularly. When the team website is up and running I will post a link. When we begin work on the project I will also post YouTube videos.

Iowa State University Professor Wins Nobel!

In my Classical Physics II class, we took a day to talk about superconductors. Fascinating stuff. But on this one slide in the presentation we see this pretty picture:

So apparently this guy named Dan Shechtman won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry today. This is kind of a big deal, because how many people do you know from Iowa State who has won a Nobel Prize? He apparently won it for discovering quasicrystals. I have absolutely no idea what quasicrystals are, and reading a Wikipedia article on the topic did not help in the least. I'm pretty sure you could win a Nobel for just coming up with the word.

Here's a more informed article if you're interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/science/06nobel.html.

Or if you're really brave, here's Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasicrystal.

Back to School

Classes I am taking this semester:

AerE 261 Introduction to Performance and Design
Astro 150 Stars, Galaxies and Cosmology
Phys 222 Classical Physics II
EM 274 Statics of Engineering

I will also be involved in USLI again which will give me a credit in AerE 290.

I am also looking for an on-campus job. Some potential opportunities include tutoring or being a research assistant.

It's looking to be a great semester.

USLI Recap

I must say, that was probably the most fun and exciting launch I have ever been to! All the rockets were so unique and high-powered. It's rather unfortunate we didn't get to stay for the entire thing, but what we were able to see was amazing.

Our own launch was not too bad. Everything recovered safely. Just having the rocket function properly was success enough. It tore off the pad and canted at a slight angle, thus only reaching an altitude of 3200 feet. The drogue and only the drogue came out at apogee. We then tracked the descent, and shouted for the payload to deploy. It was supposed to deploy at 2500 feet, but it did not. Finally, at 700 feet the main charge went off, and it popped out along with the main parachute. In 700 feet it was hard to tell if the CDV was doing its job, but it did land in the SE direction as programmed. The only catch is that it was 300m too far to the SE. However, it was closer to the mark than the rest of the rocket, which descended more rapidly than the payload. This suggests that the payload was at least trying to get back to the landing zone.

I can't stop grinning.

By the time we got home, we pretty much had our entire project for next year planned out.

Day One: NASA, Rocket Prep and Inspection

 The first day was the "fun" day, and we got to go behind the scenes of many of the NASA facilities there at Marshall Space Flight Center. Of the more interesting that we did was the friction stir welding, the life support systems facility, and the ISS Payload Operations Center.

We then headed back to the hotel to get our rocket inspected, where it was scrutinized thoroughly by very experienced rocketeers.

This shot is of the meeting at the beginning of the day, and shows just how many people are here for this event. We got to meet a few other teams here, including one guy that was on a team by himself.

This is one of the pieces they are fabricating using the method of friction stir welding. It is such a good method that it makes to pieces and turns them into one piece. They've never had to redo a welding job ever. Basically, how it works is that it has a spinny thing that rubs the metal so hard that it melts under the heat of friction, and then they stir it around and mix it up, and there you have it.

This here was originally going to be part of the Space Station, but it never got fully funded, so this place got it, and they use it to exercise in an our a day to collect sweat that they use for experimentation.

 

This building had giant doors:

The Payload Operations Center was very interesting. It receives data from every US experiment on the station and controls the operation of said experiments.

The minimum amount of monitors per computer I saw was maybe five. One computer workstation had ten monitors surrounding it in a perimeter.

The Payload Operations Center also has Shuttle Observation room which could serve as a mini control room in the event that there was a really bad storm or hurricane in Houston. While the guy was talking I opened up Minesweeper and got the high score. So now any engineers that play minesweeper on that computer are going to see my name.

Saturn V mock-up.

Getting ready for inspection: How many aerospace engineers does it take to screw in an eye-bolt?

Inspection went well. We only got four fixes on our fix-it sheet, all of which were doable.

Inspecting the altimeters.

I do enjoy converting hotel rooms into rocket workshops. 

 

Crunch Time!

Our University Student Launch Initiative entry has encountered a little bump in the road. We decided we had to abandon our old rocket due to some structural issues, so we're going to have to build an entirely new launch vehicle. The really challenging piece? Our first launch is going to be in the first week of March. So we need to build the rocket, put together a prototype for our electronics, purchase a motor (K1100), and FIND A LAUNCH somewhere in the Midwest. As soon as the parts for the rocket arrive we will be working on building it every night. Then there's another interesting bit. We might not have a level 2 certified member able to go along to the launch. We have three level 2 certified members in the Iowa State Space Society, and at least one of them can't go. So... if worse comes to worst and none of the level 2 members can go, I might be able to launch the rocket as a certification attempt, since I am already level 1 certified. That is, of course, a last resort.

So we have to do all that in about fifteen days. I believe we can do it.

Light at the End of the Tunnel! ...Or is That a Locomotive??

Okay, just kidding. But I can see the end. Only a couple days until Thanksgiving break, and then there are only about three more school weeks until the semester is all over. It's been a long semester, or a quick one, depending on how you look at it. Long, considering all the stuff I've learned and how much life has changed since August. But actually, strictly temporally, it felt faster than a typical high-school semester, probably because the classes go at a much faster pace.

But it's not over yet. Now we have to study for finals.

Due tomorrow is my learning team's technical report for the rocket design project we did in AerE160. We completed the report in about one week, it was a mad dash.

NaNoWriMo continues okay, I'm a little behind schedule though. To reach the 50,000 word mark by November 30th, I should be at 28339 words, and I'm currently at 23216. So it's not terrible. Considering I am capable of doing 10k a day (about average for Nanooks in Pajamas), 1914 a day is NOT an issue in the least.

Thanksgiving blessings:

• Thank you God for a wonderful family to come home to.
• Thank you for giving me a passion for aerospace and your Awesome Creation.
• Thank you  for giving me a great situation here at Iowa State.
• Thank you for saving me from destruction.
• Thank you for being my guidance system.
• Thank you for cereal.
• Thank you for helping me through difficult times as you always have in the past.
• Thank you for mechanical pencils.
• Thank you for wonderful fall colors... while they lasted.
• Thank you for bringing cold weather.
• Thank you for getting me through Multivariable Calculus.
• Thank you God for being my God and for being so awesome.

The Launch

It was a great day, and lots of fun to see all the rocket designs people came up with. There were a lot of great flights... and a lot of failures too! Our rocket performed well, but its second flight randomly went unstable for some reason. We're not sure what was different about the second flight that resulted in the poorer stability because we did everything exactly the same. As usual, blame it on the wind...

In the middle of the day, they paused the rocket launches to fly a model of the Marston Water Tower on an E9 motor. For some reason the rocket just sat and burned on the pad. I can't imagine that the rocketeer who built it didn't calculate their thrust-to-weight ratio, but you never know. Maybe the launch rod was too tight. Maybe the motor didn't work right.

Thankfully the weather turned out great! It didn't rain, it wasn't very cold, and marvelously the wind stayed in a manageable range.

As fun as the event was, I have to say, it was poorly planned.

For one thing, the objective was to stay inside a launch angle of 20 degrees downrange, at apogee. That is a ridiculous objective, especially since it was 100% based on variables beyond our control. The wind, the random weather-cocking, etc. We didn't even get to choose our own launch angle or put our rocket on the launch pad, so how can we have any impact on which direction the rocket takes off? I think maybe the basis of this idea was that stable rockets are going to straighter than unstable rockets, which is true... but pretty much all of the unstable rockets landed within the acceptable range, because immediately after leaving the launch pad they would spin around and plop down, with little chance to veer out-of-bounds.

Other things: They really needed some sort of loudspeaker setup. I'm sure the guy doing all the announcing can't even talk today. Also, I think that if each team were given a queuing number, the launch would have gone much more efficiently, instead of having each group wait in a long line after each flight.

The altitude tracking setup was a little ridiculous, too. The in-class examples of the triangulation methods were similar to the two-station tracking in The Handbook of Model Rocketry, where there is a baseline between the two trackers, an elevation angle, and an azimuth angle. At the launch, the tracking devices measured only the elevation angle, so we were told to estimate the ground angle with our feet... um... yeah. Highly accurate methodology there. I'm sure lot of people just ended up fudging their data, or making it up completely. We'll be comparing these results to our RockSim simulations, but there really isn't any point when we have a precision of + or - 50% to report!

I really shouldn't complain too loudly though, because the event would probably be a disaster if I were given the task of planning it.

Our rocket being placed on the pad

Long lines

Assorted liftoffs

The water-tower-rocket