Cambridge University Spaceflight

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From the edge of space a tiny camera captures the dramatic curvature of the Earth, during a test flight that is one small step for Cambridge University students aiming to launch a rocket into space for under £1,000. - The Guardian

Cambridge University Spaceflight is a student run society founded in 2006 comprising undergraduates and postgraduates from many disciplines. We aim to develop the technology needed to reduce the cost of sub-orbital access to space for scientific research, in the form of high altitude balloon launches, designing rockets, and other related experiments.

Space Boffins Podcast

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Earlier this month we recorded an interview with the Space Boffins podcast about the smartphone satellite project we are currently working on, ‘Scream in Space’ (we’ll be posting more information about this in the coming weeks!).

The podcast is now out and you can listen to the CUSF interview here:

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Check out the full podcast, also featuring Space Shuttle engineer Matt Melis, over at Audioboo. To learn more about the STRaND nanosatellite, see here, and to find our about some of our previous Android experiments, take a look at this recent report from Squirrel 2.0.

EARS 4/11/2012

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Last Sunday, CUSF took our new rocket to EARS. We launched it twice, on an H143 and an H225 motor, and recovered it okay both times!

All the photos are on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuspaceflight/sets/72157628282044955/

And all the photos are on Vimeo: 1 2 3 4 5

Some highlights:

Launch 2

Launch 1 (handycam) from Cambridge University Spaceflight on Vimeo.

Launch 1 (slowmo) from Cambridge University Spaceflight on Vimeo.

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Hopefully we’ll be launching two new rockets and this one a few more times next EARS meeting!

RaccoonKit

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Nearly done soldering up this very prototype-y payload for the rocket on Sunday. It’s got a GPS (FSA03) being transmitted over an XBee (Series 2B, pro, 50mW) while at the same time an ADXL345 accelerometer is logged to an SD card on the OpenLog. All powered by a tiny little LiPo battery.

It’s pretty neat! Not entirely done yet (need to add a last-minute 3v3 regulator and reprogram the openlog) but should be in working order by Sunday.

Rocket Painting

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The latest rocket is all painted! We’ve gone for a metallic blue on the fins and nosecone and matt black for the body. This should be launching on Sunday from EARS — our first rocket launch in quite a while!

Stay tuned for details on an experimental telemetry payload we’re putting together as fast as we can solder…

Further Rocket Progress

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Further work rocket today — nearly all done now! Just gotta paint the thing and sort out a payload…

Rocket Assembly Progress

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On Sunday we started putting together the first of the new kit rockets and now we’re waiting for epoxy to dry before we move on to the next stage.

Static Test Rig Progress

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The CUSF team have been building a rig to test a rocket motor whilst it is firing. The rig is designed to mechanically separate the X-Y-Z components of thrust, using a series of spring steel flexures. The 3 axes of thrust are then measured by 5 separate load cells to get the axial thrust, off-axis thrust and off-axis moments from the rocket motor.

This week, one of the measurement arms has had the flexures assembled and load cells bolted on. The main thrust bearing cage has also almost been finished.

New Website

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After a long time working on it, we launched our new website yesterday. We hope the change makes the site more user friendly and easy to navigate. We’ll be adding more content over the next few weeks.

Thanks to everyone on the CU Spaceflight team who was involved with the new site, we think it has been worth it!

Team Meeting

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We have some new members working on new Arduino trackers, following in the footsteps of the very successful Weasel project last year.

In the vein of ramping up work on rockets this year, some have been ordered! We’re getting a LOC Precision ISIS, a LOC Precision Caliber ISP and a LOC Precision Bruiser EXP. Hopefully the ISIS will arrive in time to get playing as soon as possible, while the Bruiser should be big enough to start testing a lot of electronics.

The Weasel Arduino Tracker launched on Nova 19

The Weasel Arduino Tracker launched on Nova 19