White Dwarf is a project that CUSF are undertaking in order to experiment with liquid engines in preparation for the creation of White Giant, the engine that will take Griffin 1 to the Karman line. This smaller scale engine uses the same architecture for the most important components, allowing us to test the principles on …
Aquila, named after the genus of true eagles for it’s elegant bistable fin system, is the second stage of Griffin 1; CUSF’s first project which intends to pass the karman line. We are planning to launch Aquila in 2022 for testing. It will be powered by a Cesaroni Pro98, before it is integrated with Panthera …
Our cooling team have recently been working on Bamboo, a set of analysis and modelling tools that predicts the temperatures and thermal stresses across combustion chambers. It takes user specified parameters and produces outputs to assist with easy optimisation of designs. Bamboo outputs steady state temperature data, which can be used to predict stresses in …
Even though our hands-on work has been paused in the past 12 months, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy here at CUSF. Here’s a quick round up of the projects that we are currently working on. Martlet 4 The 4th member of our Martlet series, this single stage rocket aims to reach an altitude …
Below are tests we carried out (prior to the Coronavirus lockdown) of the subsystems that will be needed for our next rocket rocket project, the Martlet 4. Powered by our Pulsar hybrid rocket motor, Martlet 4 will be our largest rocket yet while its hybrid propsulsion provides some unique challenges. Fill line disconnect system: ‘The …
When designing the recovery system for a rocket the maximum forces must estimated. There are two main considerations, the deceleration of the separating parts of the rocket as the shock cord goes tight and the deceleration of the rocket as the main parachute deploys (in dual deployment systems). Firstly the separation velocity must be found. …
My final year project was on building a guided rocket using canards during which I was fortunate enough to get access to a large wind tunnel for a week at very short notice. This proved extremely enlightening as the aerodynamics were much more complicated than I had been assuming.Firstly the lift from the canards was …
It is important that vents are drilled in the rocket so that the barometer on the flight computer can sample the atmospheric pressure (and calculate the altitude). There are various rules of thumb for sizing such ports but few explanations from first principles. Intuitively (or based on dimensional analysis if you will) there must be …
Due to a late minute design change we could not get the parachutes to fit inside the booster section of Martlet 3. Perhaps inspired by his PhD on Dyson vacuum cleaners Jack suggested that vacuum bags might help, no one thought it would work. A short trip to Asda and some experimentation later and the chutes …
The standard in model rocketry is to use a small (about 2 grams) black powder (BP) charge to deploy the parachutes. The black powder can be ignited with an e-match which can be fired from a flight computer. The rapid combustion produces hot gases which pressurise the sealed parachute bay causing the rocket to separate …
