The goal of the rocket team is to eventually enter a rocket into the Sounding Rocket Competition, which is an intercollegiate competition with teams from all around the world. Our final rocket is projected to be about 5'' in diameter, 5-6 feet in length, and its target altitude is 10,000 feet. For this project we decided to focus on building a small altimeter for our model rockets (scaled down versions of our final rocket), and designing and making a main parachute. We will also hopefully be able to also make a drogue parachute and a 10 lb payload for our final rocket that we'll use for the competition.

We decided that for our next major launch we would launch a 1/3 scale version of our final rocket, so we decided to design our parachute based on the 1/3 scale size. If our design works, we'll go ahead and make a larger parachute for our final rocket with the same design. We're going to try to make a toroidal shaped parachute for our main, because it will create the most drag for our rocket. It will be about 3 feet in diameter for our 1/3 scale rocket. A drogue chute is a smaller parachute attached to the main chute that deploys first and gets the rocket into position, so the main chute can deploy properly; they're needed when you start to use large parachutes. We haven't figured out the sizing for the drogue yet, and right now I feel our best course of action is to make the drogue the same size as what's commercially available, test it to see how well it performs, and then make adjustments from there. The picture below is of a commercially available toroidal parachute with a drogue chute attached.

I found the instructions for making a small altimeter earlier in the year, and it's based off an arduino system. I ordered the parts for it, so once the parts arrive we'll begin making the altimeter. The design for the small altimeter is simple, but eventually we'll need to create a larger one for our larger scale rockets because the small one won't be able to handle the high altitudes or G forces well enough. In addition to the altimeter, we'll need a to construct an accelorometer, and a GPS. We'll also need to find a way to make the altimeter deploy the drogue and main chutes at the right altitude. We're unsure whether it would be better to buy some of the flight data collectors commercially for our final rocket, or if it would be better to make the devices ourselves. For some of the components we use, we're constrained by the rules of the competition, and we're planning at this point to buy the GPS tracker commercially. For the other components we're looking into basing them off of a larger arduino system.

In the competition we'll need a 10lb payload to put into our rocket, and we get extra points if we have the payload complete some sort of scientific experiment while in the air. Our initial thoughts were to either buy or construct some Geiger counters and have them measure different levels of radiation at different altitudes to see how much of a risk it poses to flight crews at different altitudes, because we know that of all the people deemed "radiation workers," flight crews accumulate some of the most radiation in their systems. At this time, we haven't looked into this idea very much, so I can't say much about what we might do with it. We know that if we proceed with this idea, we'll at least have to create a separate recovery system for it.

Photo credit to: https://www.apogeerockets.com/Building_Supplies/Parachutes_Recovery_Equipment/Parachutes/High_Power/60in_Iris_Ultra_Parachute