UB SEDS in early 2017 began to mix our own propellant. Less than 12 months later we have mixed and tested over a dozen motors, constructed our own test stand, and launched a rocket on our in house mixed propellant. I have been involved in some form or another with each of these portions but my main focus has been on test stand electronics.
Below you can find descriptions of each part of experimental propulsion and a link to a page on it with more details:
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.
Motor test stand (Large) – Coming hopefully spring 2018