Solid Fuel Rocket

Preliminary Design

The rocket was first designed and simulated in Open Rocket using motor data and thrust curves generated from our static hot fire motor testing. Electronic components were tested individually and then together on the ground, modeling the avionics bay to house them within the rocket on Fusion 360.

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Fabrication

For the avionics bay, plywood was laser cut using files from the 3D model and adhered with wood glue. A combination of bolts and zipties were used to fasten all electronics. The coupler holding the avionics bay along with the main body tube were made using a fiberglass composite. The fins were also laser cuts then reinforced with the same fiberglass composite. The recovery system featured a dual deploy streamer and parachute which were both cut out of ripstop nylon and sewn together using templates. Finally, the motor had several segments casted using an ammonium perchlorate and aluminum powder mixture (APCP) with a hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene binder (HTPB) that was assembled into a COTS aluminum motor casing.

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Closing Thoughts

This was the most complex rocket project I had worked on while in high school. Several weeks of design and iteration went into this project and was incredibly rewarding to fly on launch day. The rocket was successfully recovered and reached an apogee of 8000ft with a top speed over mach.