Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Recovery Update

We’ve been working on determining parachute design requirements over the past several weeks. We want to buy an already made parachute. We considered personnel parachutes, but these don’t slow our rocket down enough. The rocket would land at 7 m/s. This is too high and would result in serious damage. A cluster of 3 personnel parachute is a possible solution, but this would introduce unneeded complexity. So, we were looking for large cargo parachutes. We found several 64 foot diameter parachutes for a reasonable price. They would slow our rocket down to a safe landing speed of 3.6 m/s. The only problem is that they come without the lines. Also, we found an appropriate drogue chute. The next step would be to see how these can be integrated into our design. If everything turns out OK, the parachute and the drogue chute will be bought.

Air brake final drawings have been reviewed and the bill of materials for the air brakes has been finally created. Above is a pic of our air brake design.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Light Posting till the 28th

It's exam season at UBC, which explains the curious lack of posts over the last little while. However, a bit of good news did come through on Thursday, when I was informed that the development review committee would approve a development permit for an on-campus rocket engine test site.

We still need to get a building permit, which will take some time as we have to find a P.Eng. to provide assurance for the "building" (i.e. blockhouse) design. This will be difficult as most qualified professors don't have insurance to cover this, and because all the civil engineering P.Engs in Vancouver are up to their eyeballs in work with the huge development boom that's going on. Finding someone willing to give our structure a lookover on a pro bono basis is going to be tough.

Should any interested, qualified individuals read this, why not send us a message and let us know? We would be immensely grateful for the support, and would be happy to list you or your company as a sponsor for the donation of your time.