Rocket lab has been busy building our second ATV for a flight at ESRA in June or possibly some other time during this summer. This vehicle is dubbed Carbon Copy: Get it? I don't. Most of CC's components are finished or well under way, including the motor case, upper airframe, fins, nosecone, and coupler. The most significant tasks that remain for the summer lab members include machining of the retention rings, bulkheads, and nozzle; shaping and bonding the fins; and making the avionics mounting parts, which are mostly G10.

The coupler, made of carbon-wrapped phenolic.

The motor case layup before the final tape-wrapping.

In addition to finishing and launching Carbon Copy, there are a lot of other interesting tasks going on in lab this summer. Research projects include:

• Static firing a 4" filament-wound motor
• Investigating propellant additives
• Refurbishing data acquisition equipment
• Creating an airborne tracking and relay platform
• Flying a rolleron test vehicle with passive roll control

 Stay tuned for updates on our launches, firings, and projects!

Rocket Lab made its eleventh flight on Saturday, March 24. While our Avionics Test Vehicle did not achieve its primary goals of demonstrating avionics operation or being successfully recovered, it did teach us a great deal about what we do right and what needs to be changed. In this way, it will contribute to the success of future vehicles. Read this post for the full trip report.

ATV's tip-to-tip went on well, emerging from the oven with no wrinkles beyond Alec and Jake's sanding capabilities. We applied a cool stripey paint scheme to the upper airframe, but only had time to give the motor case a coat of grey primer.

Jake with the upper airframe.

The only part we really had trouble with was the nozzle, which was about 20 thou too large to fit in the rocket. It took about two hours to sand and file it down, teaching us to test-fit every part in its final location, not just something we think is the same size. Also, we plan to bake the tip-to-tip in the future with the mandrel inside the motor case to minimize case shrinkage. Once the nozzle fit, the rest of the integration went very smoothly, being completed at about 1630.

Assembling the motor.

Loading the cartridge.

Integrating the avionics had several glitches, most notably the Big Red Bee GPS failing to turn on after it had worked properly in lab the previous night. This was our most reliable system. It might help to use better carrying cases for the avionics in the future. We planned to fly a GoPro camera, which was to sit on a G10 plate on top of the coupler.

Test-fitting the GoPro in the team's blockhouse lair.

Unfortunately, once the GoPro was installed in the avionics cartridge it was impossible to slide the coupler in all the way. Because it was after 1700, close to sunset, we elected to remove the camera. After that decision, it was a quick job to close out the avionics and bolt the upper airframe to the motor case using Bill's beautiful coupler.

The motor case with the lower coupler and pressure transducer.

The rocket looked amazing on the pad.

Essential personnel only...

We had to bring the rocket back to horizontal to cycle the power on one of the avionics units. In the future, we should remember to orient the rail buttons so that the rail doesn't cover any power switches. We waited a few minutes to ensure that the Byonics unit was transmitting, and then we ignited the motor. The igniter was designed to bring the motor up to pressure gradually to minimize stresses on the carbon case, so flames poured out of the nozzle for a few seconds before the rocket lifted off.

3...2...1...fire.

Immediately after clearing the tower, ATV began to pitch over, continuing until it was at a 45-degree angle (as deduced from tracking camera video). The flight was straight after that until the moment of motor burnout, when we observed the rocket corkscrew. Matt, with binoculars, observed the vehicle separated above the coupler, with the motor case tumbling. We lost the Arduino signal at or slightly before this point, and did not receive any more 1-minute-interval Byonics transmissions.

Liftoff!

Pitchover.

Abrupt turn at burnout.

It was getting too dark to walk through the desert looking for the rocket, so the tracking team drove to a high point a few miles away. They did not receive any transmissions from the rocket. A few lab members stayed over and walked a few miles into the desert on Sunday, but did not find anything; likewise for the search party the next weekend.

In a meeting back at USC, we outlined possible causes for the flight's two glitches (the pitchover and shred). We concluded that the pitchover was probably due to a temporary thrust misalignment, so in the future we need to take more care getting the throat aligned with the nozzle exit. The cause of the shred was probably a combination of an underbuilt upper airframe and the 1" hole we cut above the coupler for the camera. We think that the airframe snapped off near this hole.

While we didn't get this rocket back, it taught us a great deal, which is the whole point of a test vehicle, so it did not fail in this respect. Some components of the ATV were wholly successful, especially the carbon case (which was only the second one we've flown), the final integration (after the nozzle was fixed), and the ATV's modular design that allowed the avionics and motor teams to work separately. Finally, an unprecedented number of rocket lab members participated in all aspects of the ATV project, from design to construction to integration.

So, what's next for Rocket Lab? We are proceeding with our previous plans to evolve the ATV design into our main 4" platform, making it simpler and easier to build. Some changes we've made already include a permanent composite coupler, a phenolic avionics tube so we can still integrate the avionics separately, a rear-integrated motor, and mounted rather than foam-wrapped avionics boards. Construction of ATV2's nose cone is complete, and we have a new mandrel and carbon roll on-order. We plan to finish most of ATV2 this semester, then fly it at ESRA in June.

Another avionics test will be on a high-altitude balloon at the end of this semester. We may also test a single-stage dual-event recovery system on this flight.

Exciting times are ahead for Rocket Lab as we build up to flying Traveler at BALLS. Stay tuned!

The Avionics Test Vehicle is on track for launch this Saturday at the RRS, with the objective of testing Traveler's avionics setup at speeds up to Mach 2. The major work remaining includes doing the tip-to-tip layup, assembling the avionics, and painting the rocket. Bill and Alec are almost done machining the coupler that connects the motor case and upper airframe, while Mitchell and Matt have been machining the nozzle carrier. The fins were bonded last night. Here's a picture of the motor case, upper airframe, and nose cone; this will be a very long rocket!

ATV's length means that it can have very small fins.

We have been searching for better names for the ATV, but most of the ones proposed are not fit for publication here, so it will remain ATV unless someone has a revelation soon

Finally, we will not be firing the hybrid this weekend as it would stretch our avionics and DAQ team too thin.

For anyone who's coming this weekend, check out the directions here. We plan to leave USC at 1800 on Friday (optimistically), and launch NET 1100 Saturday. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 70s, winds 10-20 mph. Flight on!

We're starting to make some waves. Recently, the USC Trojan Family Magazine, which updates Trojan families and alumni about the goings-ons at the university, had published a piece on us, complete with crisp new photos and a clean introductory video. And this was shortly following the interview we did with the science blog on the Huffington Post, Talk Nerdy to Me.

We are humbled by the comprehensive feature that was done on us, covering the past, present, and future of Rocket Lab. Read the article from the Trojan Family Magazine here. The video they produced has been included in this post, and it consists of interviews with current lab leaders (Alec Leverette, Bill Murray, and Sarah Hester), younger members, and even old clips from our short documentary done by Possible Productions, which you can watch here.

People are certainly starting to take notice of us.
We'll make sure Traveler gives 'em a show.

EDIT: Bill and Alec were recently interviewed by a local Fox network on March 18th. View the interview here.

RPL had a good time last weekend, March 3-4, launching with Tripoli San Diego in Plaster City. The location is a misnomer, as it's really a desert next to a giant plaster factory. The trip was for Jason (me) and Jordan to get our Tripoli certifications. In addition to giving lab members experience in building their own high-power rockets, the certs allow Rocket Lab to bring more people to Tripoli-sponsored events, which require a certain proportion of certified members.

We left lab early on Saturday, and started integrating right away once we got to the launch site:

As always, integration took way longer than we expected, especially for the avionics. A bulkhead got stuck inside Jordan's rocket, Momo, so he'll be launching in a few weeks. Jake and Miles launched "Stirling II / William Murray IV" on a G motor in the afternoon. I launched the Falcon 9th in the late afternoon on an I297 with Skidmark propellant:
It flew to 600,' and had a successful recovery. The sun went down before it could fly again, so we spent the night in El Centro and were back in Plaster City at 7 the next morning. Falcon 9th was already mostly integrated, so we launched it in less than an hour. It rode a blue J357 to 1000.' After we recovered it, Jake and Miles launched their rocket again:
We spent the rest of the morning integrating the Level 3 motor, a Cesaroni 75 mm 4-grain M1230, then took the Falcon 9th out to the farthest pad for the final certification flight:
The rocket reached 11990,' just ten feet off from the preflight estimate. (The other flights, however, were several hundred feet off.) We put a radio beacon on the rocket, but it wasn't necessary because the desert was wavy in our area and the rocket landed only half a mile away.

Check out the video of the weekend's highlights:


Many thanks to Paul Snow and Jack Garibaldi for their advice and support. RPL's next event is March 24, when we will fly the Avionics Test Vehicle and try again with the hybrid motor. Stay tuned for progress reports on those projects.