Rocket Lab lately has been a busy place. The largest time-consuming element of our work as of now has been Trunnion, but that is about to change. We are nearing completion of the rebuilt Trunnion, even though our firing date has been moved back several times. Unfortunately for us, Mojave has been inundated with enough water from recent rains that it would be too difficult to drive out there to test-fire Trunnion. And it doesn't seem like it is going to dry up too soon if we keep seeing the weather we have been lately. This means that even though we are ready to fire, we are simply going to have to move on to other projects.

But the rebuilding has so far been a success. Since we haven't been as pressed for time as we originally planned for, Alec and Mitch have been able to let quite a few other members try their hand at machining parts on the lathe. And the cleanup/preparation of the motor case has gone smoothly. The only thing left to do is to finish machining the steel nozzle carrier, and we will be ready to go (see pictures below).

Otherwise, we are getting steadily closer to launching Del Grande. The upper section of the body has been layed up, and we used a hi-temp mold release that more easily facilitated the fiberglass' separation with the mandrel. Also, we have finished work on the nosecone mold plug, which will soon be used to create a new hypersonic nosecone for Del Grande. Since Del Grande won't push much past mach 1, the nosecone is obviously overkill. But the nosecone isn't really for Del Grande so much as it is being built to test our manufacturing processes that we plan to use on our new high-altitude rocket we are beginning to build (more on that as work progresses!)

Here are a few photos from lab:

Cutting our fiberglass casting tubes:

An insulator plate from the last firing: notice the aluminum droplets that condensed from the aluminum in the propellant.

A close-up of the droplets:

The nosecone mold plug being trimmed on the lathe:

Finished nosecone mold plug after a layer of fiberglass and tons of Bondo:

A newly-machined aft motor case bulkhead:

Del Grande in the background and the newly created body tube section ready to be joined together:

Machining the steel nozzle carrier:

The phenolic liner from our last firing - notice the burns in the midsection - this is a result of the higher than anticipated thermal soaking of the liner from our last burn - we hope to mitigate this effect with our new nozzle design.

Del Carbon is now hung up! Doesn't it look beautiful?

Tim, Vlad, Scott, and Jordan discussing Mach Madness designs:

Vlad working on a mach madness fin mold:

As of now, Rocket Lab is mainly working on rebuilding Trunnion for a second test-fire in mid February. We will be using a new nozzle design that minimizes the effects of tensional stresses during the ignition stage of the burn. We will be using the same case as our previous static fire, which means we have to take apart and thoroughly clean the case before our next test, while also checking for damage from our last firing. Preliminary checks are looking good.

We also are nearing completion of the nosecone mold plug for Traveler. We plan on testing the nosecone design and manufacturing processes by flying it on the body of Del Grande, along with some changes in the avionics and recovery systems. Updates will follow as work progresses.

We finally have some photos of the Trunnion firing! (Thanks to Ian). Please enjoy:

Our thrust-stand setup, along with data collection system:


Thrust collector mounted to forward end of motor case:


Static fire:


Now for some more recent photos: Mitch working on 8" nosecone plug:


Jordan attaches the thrust collector to a winch to pry out our de-pinned nozzle bulkhead:


Using mother nature to our advantage! (the trees were perfectly unharmed) - they helped us pry out the thrust bulkhead.

The spring 2010 semester at USC has begun, and RPL has been busy unpacking materials from a move that occurred during winter break. We have moved one room over in RRB into a larger space, which is a blessing for RPL as it continues to grow in both project and member size. But with moving comes a lot of work. Our lathe was slightly damaged during break and we are short of space for our 8" mandrel, so machining parts and laying up fiberglass or carbon will have to be put on hold for the time being. Not to mention we still have to organize the lab and get everything unloaded from boxes and put back on shelves.

Hopefully we will have the lab back in shape within the week so we can continue work on the new nozzle for Trunnion. Also, Mach Madness rockets are in the process of a final design review and actual building will commence as soon as the lab is organized. Also, Del Grande will be fixed up and ready to fly within the semester.

We also have new leadership. Jordan Forness and Scott Macklin have taken the helm as Jordan Olliges and Chris McNutt have graduated from USC. We wish the best of luck to Jordan O. and Chris in their future endeavors--they provided invaluable leadership to lab this past semester and helped us get where we are today. We hope to continue where they left off.

Also, the USCRPL website has been updated. You may notice new header in the front page and the Projects and Media section have been changed a bit. More images will follow in the media section as soon as possible.

Flight On!

On Dec. 5, Rocket Lab traveled to the Mojave test area to static fire the Trunnion motor, a 1/3 scale version of Traveler's motor. The static fire included a brand new, scratch built thrust stand, the largest propellant grains ever made by the lab, and our all composite motor case.

Integration and assembly began early in the morning and proceeded without any problems. It was the smoothest, most problem-free integration the lab has ever experienced. Credit for this goes out to the lab for all their hard work, and to Chris and Jordan for their leadership and foresight to anticipate problems.

The video of the Del Grande launch back on October 17th, 2009 at the MTA.