Starting in my freshman year at the University at Buffalo (UB) I have been involved with the local Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). With them I built high power rockets and explored experimental rocketry
Level 1
I have built two level one rockets. The first I built and launched sophomore year. The flight up was nominal but I set the delay too long and the ejection charge blew too late. This caused the parachute to deploy at too high of a speed jerking the rocket. The ripcord ripped a three inch tare down the body tube of the rocket. This is colloquially called zippering because the straight tare down the body of the rocket looks like someone unzipped the body tube. This failure means that I would have to build a new rocket and attempt my certification flight again.
The second rocket that I built was in Junior year. It had the same main design but slightly larger fins. This flight went nominally, the delay and ejection charge went off at the correct time, and the rocket was recovered ~ a quarter of a mile away from the launch pad.
Photo of me setting up my Level 1 on the launch rail
Recovery of the second level 1 rocket
Both Level 1 cert rockets
Experimental Rocketry
I’ve also been involved in the experimental rocketry portion of UB SEDS. I have not yet found a good or consistent line remarking the difference between High power rocketry and experimental rocketry but he general consensus is that when you are mixing your own rocket propellant you have already crossed over that line. UB SEDS is currency mixing our own motors, building our own test stand and wrapping our own fiberglass.
In house propulsion – Mixing our own propellant allows for us to produce rocket motors at a much cheaper cost to the club and develop systems tailored to our rockets in ways that commercial motors would not be able to match. We began with mixing our own solid propellant and machining our own nozzles for our motors. Well in the future, once we have gotten enough proficiency with these methods we hope to move on to hybrid and liquid motors.
Motor test stand (Small) – In order to test our propellant we built a test stand that measures the trust curve of the motors. This controlled test allows us to empirically determine the performance of the motor and our simulations of the propellant mixture without the need for flight testing. The test stand gives us a safe and quick way to test different mixtures and refine our motors before we launch a rocket with them.
SAC/IREC 2018
We Went, We Launched, We Won Third in the Space Dynamics Lab Payload Competition. Here’s my full writeup of the trip.
(Left to right) Owen Torres, Dr. Paul Desjardin, Me , Owen Langher