USLI -- Payload Electrical Fire!

We tried our first tethered test flight today... ended in disaster. But we learned a lot, and as far as we can tell none of the components are fried.

Just Because

A weekend project with my roommate (as if I have the time for it :)

USLI: tomorrow we hope to conduct a tethered test flight of the quadcopter payload. Look for a video on that soon!

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!

Update on Happenings in the Private Space Industry

SpaceX:

The famous SpaceX is gearing up to launch their new Dragon capsule up to the International Space Station. The flight was originally planned for December of last year. One thing led to another, and they are now planning to launch this spring. Yesterday (2/27) the capsule was integrated with a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral.

XCOR Aerospace:

The Lynx Mark I has some new partners in science! EMXYS of Spain, Texas A&M's Space Engineering Research Center, and the Planetary Science Institute have joined XCOR's payload processing sales channel for the Lynx suborbital vehicle. (press release). XCOR also picked up $5M of investment capital from individual investors, such as Esther Dyson, Pete Ricketts (co-owner of the Chicago Cubs) and several top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and former venture capitalists. (another press release). This will help accelerate the date of the first flight of the Lynx.

(XCOR offered me an internship for next summer/fall. I have yet to hear the final details, but I am very, very intrigued.)

Armadillo Aerospace:
WATCH THIS VIDEO!!
If you don't want to watch the whole thing, then at least watch the amazing footage at apogee (starting ~2:50), and the ending.

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.