We'll be holding our Fall 2008 kickoff meeting this Friday Aug 22 at 7:30 pm in the Laufer Library in upstairs RRB. Get excited because we'll be discussing our plans for the next few months and picking project leaders. Make sure you know what days you're available and approximately how many hours you can dedicate. See you there!

More to come.

Lots to update, but it's 3 AM, we leave this afternoon, and we aren't done.

Yet.



Our next project (as yet unnamed -- we haven't had any crazy dinners, except for ordering in Papa John's, but that doesn't quite seem appropriate for this beast...) is well underway, with tubes joined and squared, bulkheads rounded, hatches cut, fins attached, and new ovens built. A dedicated few are still around, making sure the vehicle will be complete for our 4 PM departure time to the test site. Here's a few photos of the progress:

Geoff with the Aeneas mkI booster. Fins are G10 edges with a blue foam core, covered in two layers of light glass. The real strength comes from the tip-to-tip 3 layer IM7 carbon lamination that is in the oven as I type this. The motor is next to the vehicle (nose cone there just to make it look rocket-like -- this is a booster, after all); 10,000 lb-sec modified Del Scorcho propellant. Theoretical 7.5 sec burn time, 1300 lb average thrust. Worst case, we'll fly this alone; it'd be pretty sweet.


Sarah with the beautiful prepreg-honeycomb fins that she and Chris laid up over the course of last weekend. These are currently being integrated into the sustainer, which is essentially a clone of Del Carbon, with the addition of staging electronics and a lack of a tailcone. First flight motor for this is the same as Del Carbon -- 4 grain 76mm L motor, 5 sec burn time. Expected altitude for the combined stack is between 40,000 and 50,000 feet, to take place at the RRS launch on the 26th. Tomorrow. w00t.

We'll be ready. Keep watch for news. Something interesting will happen!

We got the thrust stand back from the powder coaters. Special thanks to Tortoise Industries for sponsoring us with the snazzy red color. It looks pretty sharp. The clamp rings were machined by the Jordans and ride on custom multi-axis linkages designed by Ian. I made some washers for it, I guess. Oh, and I guess James *kind of* designed (read: designed) the whole thing. Thanks, James. I hope it works.


We also had a prepreg party. Sarah cut big fin pieces, while Brian and Ryan (not planned but in hindsight, it's funny 'cause they rhyme) cut strips for leading and trailing edges. The main airframe for the sustainer is already rolled and chilling against a pipe. Same goes for the nose cone. Scott, Jimmy, and Jeff even managed to trim the airframe sections to rough lengths and get everything squared up for a final trim this week.

Not to be left out of the party, Ian got started on the plug for the interstage coupler.

Oh, and booster fin core material showed up from McMaster today. It's good to be building again.

We've locked the design of our next project. Stay tuned for details, we're hoping to launch next month.

The short story: two stages, two solid motors, testing for something bigger. It should push the altitude limit at the MTA just a bit, too.

Almost forgot, I promised I'd post this at the RRS meeting tonight. This video is a CATO of a new design for a micrograin rocket (not ours), at the PRS back in November:

The picture is of poor quality, but it represents a huge step forward in our progress on creating a carbon fiber motor casing. Visible (barely) in the orange glow of a high pressure sodium light behind the lab is the hydrotest pump connected to a high pressure hose leading to the test article in the grass. Ian is the big white object in the foreground. We pushed this tank to well over 1000 PSI with our new handy tube-testing device, and tried as hard as we could to destroy it. Unfortunately, instead of blowing the tank apart, we instead managed to extrude one of the soft silicone o-rings out the end of the test fixture -- COOL!

We're freshly confident in our tank-rolling abilities, and look forward to assembling a new motor soon for a static test at the MTA. The casting tubes are already cut. Stay tuned.

We returned from Balls with a whole bunch of new testing goals to make sure that we understand what exactly went wrong. The simplest thing to test was the methods of retaining the bulkhead and nozzle inside the casing. Rather than a typical snap ring design, we are using a special high-shear adhesive to bond the metal to the carbon fiber. We wanted to make sure that the bonds weren't simply failing in shear and blowing the bulkheads out. The simplest way to accomplish this is with a hydrotest:

The morning of the Stanford game we tested a section of the same tubing material we used for the motor case (literally -- this is the other 2 feet of the motor casing tube) with two fresh aluminum bulkheads, bonded in the exact same way they were for the flight motor. The bonds held up under nearly 1000 psi of pressure with no problems, as expected, and thus so far, so good on our CATO theory.

Well, we're back, and we got a whole bunch of new data. Unfortunately our motor failed on the pad, but it did so in a way completely differently from expected -- instead of the glue joint at the bulkhead failing, the tube itself suffered an interlaminar shear failure and allowed one of its inner layers to slide out at motor pressure-up. This was caused by a pinch failure around the edges of our insulation bulkhead, which broke into two pieces as the motor came up to pressure.

Special thanks to Les Derkovitz of NASSA, who graciously let us borrow his launch rail. We're replacing the rail section that we torched...

On the upside, we got our first failure out of the way, and we think we know exactly what went wrong. We'll be pressure testing another section of the tube this week to make sure that it wasn't something else, and hopefully we will be assembling another motor to static fire in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for photos and some updates to the site, including videos of the last cato.

We're off to Balls in the morning. Balls is the annual experimental launch of the Tripoli Rocketry Association, hosted by the Arizona High Power Rocketry Association in the Black Rock Desert. The event is notable for its tremendous launch site, awesome rocket vehicles, great people, and 100,000 foot waiver.

We'll be representing USC our newest rocket, Silver Spur, powered by an O3000 motor that will eventually function as one of two strap-on boosters for Traveler. Ian's still in the lab finishing up a few things as of 1:30 this morning -- half of us have a midterm today, so we had to turn in a bit early tonight. We'll hit the road for the 11-ish hour drive at 10 AM, and expect to be in Gerlach just after sunset.

There'll be an internet connection provided by the Rocket Mavericks, with a live webcast as well -- check it out at http://mavcam.rocketmavericks.com/ (or http://www.rocketmavericks.com and click on "MavCAM"). I'll be doing my best to liveblog RPL activities, but no guarantees.

Either way, we'll be back on Sunday night with some interesting data!

Well, summer's over, we're moved in, and we're hard at work. I've updated the website a bit, adding a Del Carbon project article (check it out over on the Projects page, or directly here) with flight videos, photos, and other goodies. Check back here soon for several updates about our new test vehicle... it's kind of a big deal.

The Rocket Lab is, has been, and will forever be moving. Actually, with any luck we'll be fully moved and installed in our new lab within another week or two. Our mighty trek takes us from the slums of RRB 111 to the country club neighborhood of RRB 107B. As soon as the new wall is installed and the electricians finish wiring up our three-phase 208 power we'll have the movers haul our lathe and mill into their new spots. Hopefully our next post will be from our new lab!

The new version of the site is live today.