9 ms·

A Rocket Built by Students Reaches Space

191 points by curtis 7y ago

bunderbunder 7y ago
Surprised to see the photo of the rocket back on the ground, with the nose cone still attached by some sort of rope. It would appear that the biggest difference between this thing and an Estes rocket is the size?
- MPSimmons 7y ago
  From a simplistic standpoint, the only difference between the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters and an Estes rocket was the size. In reality, a solid rocket motor at this scale is very difficult to manufacture reliably, and with the thrust profile that will provide the performance that you need to reach your goals. That's not to mention the avionics in this rocket, the materials (carbon fiber laid down by the students), the deployment systems for the nose cone, and the manufacturing of the nozzle engineered to provide adequate thrust through the entire range of atmospheric pressures.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    To be fair, though, all of these are solved problems that are easily overcome with budget and outsourcing. Ex. you can buy quality carbon fiber tubes in whatever diameter and thickness you want from multiple suppliers, contract out the nozzle based on existing designs to a CNC milling or titanium SLS printing company, purchase aerospace-rated avionics packages, etc. The impressive part here is that the students seem to be doing a good chunk of these things mostly in-house and with less money than it would normally take.
    - lutorm 7y ago
      Sure you can contract out the work, but paying for someone else to make a rocket you launch doesn't really qualify you to say that you did anything. It also doesn't teach you anything, so what's the point? Most of what you work on in college is solved problems, because college is about learning and not about original research.
  - dvh 7y ago
    Space shuttle is rocket with wings and additional 2 million parts.
  - bunderbunder 7y ago
    At a very high level, yeah, most every rocket is just a tube that's pointy on one and and goes fwoom at the other. But this seems like it might be more similar to an Estes rocket than just that. The space shuttle's solid rocket boosters don't deploy the parachute by ejecting the whole nose cone, which is attached by a shock cord, and letting it drag the parachute out of the rocket's body. That's really what I was reacting to. That, not only did they get to space, but they apparently got to space using a much more rough-and-ready design than I would have expected. The hacker in me loves that.
- delibes 7y ago
  Bigger also means they can put more sensors onboard (though you can do quite a bit with Estes). But even the Shuttle SRBs used parachute recovery, although without popping the nose cone. Biggest difference I can think of is that the SRBs had a gimballing nozzle. From photos on the project website, it looks like fins are fixed too. I don't know the law around it, but guess adding control surfaces would make this into a guided missile! https://www.uscrpl.com/traveler-iv https://www.uscrpl.com/traveler-iv http://www.uscrpl.com/updates/2019/5/22/traveler-iv http://www.uscrpl.com/updates/2019/5/22/traveler-iv
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    I've done a small amount of model rocketry. My interest in the hobby basically ended once the various old-timers I had access to convinced me that any sort of guidance beyond extremely basic horizon tracking would indeed amount to ITAR controlled missile tech.
    - octorian 7y ago
      My interest ended when I couldn't afford to build the model rocket kits I wanted to build (I was a kid with a very limited budget). When I got older and had money, the lack of any convenient launch sites probably discouraged me from getting back into it.
- chasd00 7y ago
  you're pretty much right on. There's not a whole lot of difference. Where it gets hard is holding it together past Mach 1 and building it in the first place. Misaligning a fin on an estes rocket is no big deal, misaligning a fin on this one would mean near-instant destruction. Also, materials, cardboard isn't going to cut it. At this scale the best option is hand rolled carbon fibre which is an art in its own right.
InafuSabi 7y ago
A wonderfull achievement, these students made. The fact that it has taken the university _years_ to reach the goal combined with the solid fuel systems, which is less complex (but _not_ simple), shows the determination to have another group of non-pro's to reach that coveted altitude.
LeonM 7y ago
I have no experience in rocket science, but can anyone here explain why it's so difficult to reach the Kármán line? What else besides power/weight ratio is required to achieve something like this?
- akuji1993 7y ago
  > For most of the history of spaceflight, sending a rocket to space required mobilizing resources on a national scale. From the article. It's not that it is super hard to do nowadays if you have a near endless supply of resources and money, but for students in a science project it is a big deal.
  - modsiw 7y ago
    If you accept premise of unlimited budget and outsourcing, sending something to space is about as difficult as saying “Hey Elon, I want this thing to go to space.” The point here is that college students are able to pull this off with a small budget and lots of DIY.
- uponcoffee 7y ago
  Assuming ample money, resources, and support, height isn't a big deal (for solid state rockets). From my experience as a part of a collegiate (liquid) rocket club, just getting to manufacturing is a major hurdle. There's legal red tape, university specific red tape, insurance/liability, material sourcing, funding, manufacturing, testing etc. Note that some of these steps may require specialized facilities/equipment, transport, etc. Outsourcing (e.g. manufacturing) trades off for added red tape. ITAR is fun. This makes working towards great heights a slow process, and if something goes wrong during testing/launch it's a major set back.
- mabbo 7y ago
  Rocketry is just plain difficult and expensive. Consider the "Tyranny of Rockets" problem: if you want to send a rocket up 1 km, you need X fuel. But to get to 2 km, you need way more than 2X fuel- because you first have to carry all that extra fuel up 1 km, which takes more energy/fuel, before you can use it to go the other km. And if you want 3 km up... well, you get the idea. It's exponential in cost. Then the problem of the fuel itself. It has to be something super-energy-dense: lots of energy (velocity) for the least mass. The most super energy dense substances are usually used to make bombs, so basically you're building a metal tube with explosives inside and hoping that you can direct the explosion correctly such that your rocket goes up. And then you have to make sure your payload- in this case some sensors to prove you actually went up that high- have to be lifted (mass) and not break. In the case of this team, their previous rocket probably did reach space but the sensors weren't working so they have no evidence! If you want to really learn this stuff, play the game "Kerbal Space Program". It's not accurate in any sense, but it gives you the instincts of why and how rocketry and orbital mechanics work.
kijin 7y ago
The article mixes all sorts of units but doesn't say exactly where the Kármán line is supposed to be in any single unit. The closest it gets is 50 miles plus 60,000 feet, which is a rather confusing way to say 98.75 kilometers. The actual Kármán line is at 100 kilometers. This rocket reached an altitude of 339,800 feet, or 103.57 kilometers. Its maximum speed of 3,386 mph (assuming "normal" miles, not nautical miles) is equivalent to 1.513 kilometers per second [fixed]. It's well below orbital velocity, but good enough for poking into space and coming back down.
- aerophilic 7y ago
  There is quite a bit of debate around where the “Karman Line” should really be (the boundary to space). Recently there have been efforts to define it as less stringent than the 100km limit: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576518308221 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651... Potentially bringing it back down to 80km (the original definition was a range between 70-90km).
  - luizfzs 7y ago
    We can use Kerbal Space Program as base and set it to 70km
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      I know you're joking, but, KSP models a planet that's different from Earth in a number of ways. On Kerbin there is zero atmospheric drag past 70km; it's not the edge of space, it's the demarcation line at which indefinite stable orbits are possible. That is very different from Earth.
      - fernandopj 7y ago
        KSP is a whole different beast if you use the Real Solar System mod (which you should, once you learn the basics).
railsgirls112 7y ago
This is similar to a project I've been a part of called Operation Space, the difference being we are students not backed by one single university or organization. We've been monitoring USC's progress for months and they have been a great source of motivation, especially being that they held the previous altitude record at 144,000 ft. We are actually launching out of the same site in New Mexico in about a week and looking to break the Karman Line and hopefully this new milestone. Link for anyone interested: https://operationspace.org/ https://operationspace.org/
- mysterydip 7y ago
  Good luck! I'm envious and inspired :)
- breitling 7y ago
  Good luck! How expensive would something like this be? Is it something I can casually do with my grown up kids on weekends?
  - railsgirls112 7y ago
    Thank you! I don't have exact figures handy but short answer no, not at this scale at least. Manufacturing, design, materials, safety etc. all easily runs in the tens of thousands of dollars. We are on a much tighter budget, but AFAIK USC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single launch.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      The article doesn't really say anything to the parent commenter's question... This was not possible years ago (the part about students being able to do it, not nation states). What improvements in design and tech occured?
  - chasd00 7y ago
    It has a lot to do with how much of a craftsman you are too. The really good people in the high power rocketry hobby can get above 100k feet on a budget of maybe $3-4k These rockets are almost always 2 stage designs. The most expensive parts are the motors and electronics. Typically, you'll have redundant flight controllers for the booster and sustainer plus GPS/radio trackers to find them once the rocket eventually lands. They aren't much different than the typical little hobby shop rockets just bigger and faster. The ones i've seen were maybe 8-10' tall, hand rolled carbon or fiberglass fuselages, and peak at around Mach 3.
HubZemke 7y ago
This is incorrect. The first student rocket to reach space was by the United States Air Force Academy https://archive.is/20121212202343/http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123176320 https://archive.is/20121212202343/http://www.af.mil/news/sto... https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwuvfKuNqZxQQ2xudkwtQXB4V0k/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwuvfKuNqZxQQ2xudkwtQXB4V0k... From here: https://twitter.com/skulumani/status/1131351960622391297?s=20 https://twitter.com/skulumani/status/1131351960622391297?s=2...
- fernandopj 7y ago
  The article seems to contradict it's own title: > making the USC Rocket Lab only the second amateur group to ever send a rocket to space
  - EForEndeavour 7y ago
    I'd chalk it up to the ambiguity of natural language: "A Rocket Built by Students Reached Space for the First Time" as in the particular rocket referred to in the title reached space for the first time in that rocket's existence.
    - notahappycamper 7y ago
      That's being too generous. Other than spacex, essentially every rocket that reaches space does so "for the first time". The title is intentionally misleading
      - EForEndeavour 7y ago
        I strongly disagree. The article describes in detail the student group's years of efforts to reach space, culminating in this success after years of failures. Moreover, they're the first collegiate team to make it to space (and the second "amateur" team). The title is not intentionally misleading, just a bit ambiguous.
  - plugger 7y ago
chasd00 7y ago
There's a guy in the high power rocketry hobby that is aiming for space this August at the BALLS event in Nevada. He won't say it, but given what he's done in the past, and the pictures of what he's building there's no other reasonable explanation. A guy last year hit 244k feet ( 2/3 the way to the Karman line) on OTC solid rocket motors available to NAR or Tripoli L3 certified amateurs. Granted, it was a very exceptional rocket, but access to space by amateurs is getting closer every day. That rocket https://mach5lowdown.com/2018/11/07/phx4-rocket-launch-to-200000ft/ https://mach5lowdown.com/2018/11/07/phx4-rocket-launch-to-20... BALLS http://www.tripoli.org/Balls http://www.tripoli.org/Balls
frugalmail 7y ago
So that's where that crazy tuition goes.... Also, wonder why not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine ?
- mLuby 7y ago
  Is there such thing as a solid fuel aerospike? I'd think the spike geometry would still give ambient (maximally efficient) expansion over a range of altitudes but IDK how they'd make that work with solid propellants. I'm sure the students didn't because it's never been done before, and you get an A for succeeding with proven technologies, not failing with unproven ones.
davidhyde 7y ago
The rocket reached 103.57km (100km is considered the edge of space) in altitude to spare anyone from reading this extremely annoying article. The solid fuel based rocket weighed 136kg and at just under 4m in height is impressively small for reaching this altitude. It’s parachutes deployed an it was recovered safely. There.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  The article really is so annoying, and not just for that reason. There are no links or references to the technological advancements made here along the way. Another: they at least mention the CSXT team in passing (which the article seems to imply to an unwitting reader to not exist), but not even their name. If I were king of a news outlet, I'd rather hire actual enthusiasts to write articles, and editors to touch them up, rather than have this kind of crap.

191 points by curtis 7y ago

Surprised to see the photo of the rocket back on the ground, with the nose cone still attached by some sort of rope. It would appear that the biggest difference between this thing and an Estes rocket is the size?

MPSimmons 7y ago
From a simplistic standpoint, the only difference between the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters and an Estes rocket was the size. In reality, a solid rocket motor at this scale is very difficult to manufacture reliably, and with the thrust profile that will provide the performance that you need to reach your goals. That's not to mention the avionics in this rocket, the materials (carbon fiber laid down by the students), the deployment systems for the nose cone, and the manufacturing of the nozzle engineered to provide adequate thrust through the entire range of atmospheric pressures.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  To be fair, though, all of these are solved problems that are easily overcome with budget and outsourcing. Ex. you can buy quality carbon fiber tubes in whatever diameter and thickness you want from multiple suppliers, contract out the nozzle based on existing designs to a CNC milling or titanium SLS printing company, purchase aerospace-rated avionics packages, etc. The impressive part here is that the students seem to be doing a good chunk of these things mostly in-house and with less money than it would normally take.
  - lutorm 7y ago
    Sure you can contract out the work, but paying for someone else to make a rocket you launch doesn't really qualify you to say that you did anything. It also doesn't teach you anything, so what's the point? Most of what you work on in college is solved problems, because college is about learning and not about original research.
- dvh 7y ago
  Space shuttle is rocket with wings and additional 2 million parts.
- bunderbunder 7y ago
  At a very high level, yeah, most every rocket is just a tube that's pointy on one and and goes fwoom at the other. But this seems like it might be more similar to an Estes rocket than just that. The space shuttle's solid rocket boosters don't deploy the parachute by ejecting the whole nose cone, which is attached by a shock cord, and letting it drag the parachute out of the rocket's body. That's really what I was reacting to. That, not only did they get to space, but they apparently got to space using a much more rough-and-ready design than I would have expected. The hacker in me loves that.
delibes 7y ago
Bigger also means they can put more sensors onboard (though you can do quite a bit with Estes). But even the Shuttle SRBs used parachute recovery, although without popping the nose cone. Biggest difference I can think of is that the SRBs had a gimballing nozzle. From photos on the project website, it looks like fins are fixed too. I don't know the law around it, but guess adding control surfaces would make this into a guided missile! https://www.uscrpl.com/traveler-iv https://www.uscrpl.com/traveler-iv http://www.uscrpl.com/updates/2019/5/22/traveler-iv http://www.uscrpl.com/updates/2019/5/22/traveler-iv
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  I've done a small amount of model rocketry. My interest in the hobby basically ended once the various old-timers I had access to convinced me that any sort of guidance beyond extremely basic horizon tracking would indeed amount to ITAR controlled missile tech.
  - octorian 7y ago
    My interest ended when I couldn't afford to build the model rocket kits I wanted to build (I was a kid with a very limited budget). When I got older and had money, the lack of any convenient launch sites probably discouraged me from getting back into it.
chasd00 7y ago
you're pretty much right on. There's not a whole lot of difference. Where it gets hard is holding it together past Mach 1 and building it in the first place. Misaligning a fin on an estes rocket is no big deal, misaligning a fin on this one would mean near-instant destruction. Also, materials, cardboard isn't going to cut it. At this scale the best option is hand rolled carbon fibre which is an art in its own right.

InafuSabi 7y ago

A wonderfull achievement, these students made. The fact that it has taken the university _years_ to reach the goal combined with the solid fuel systems, which is less complex (but _not_ simple), shows the determination to have another group of non-pro's to reach that coveted altitude.

LeonM 7y ago

I have no experience in rocket science, but can anyone here explain why it's so difficult to reach the Kármán line? What else besides power/weight ratio is required to achieve something like this?

akuji1993 7y ago
> For most of the history of spaceflight, sending a rocket to space required mobilizing resources on a national scale. From the article. It's not that it is super hard to do nowadays if you have a near endless supply of resources and money, but for students in a science project it is a big deal.
- modsiw 7y ago
  If you accept premise of unlimited budget and outsourcing, sending something to space is about as difficult as saying “Hey Elon, I want this thing to go to space.” The point here is that college students are able to pull this off with a small budget and lots of DIY.
uponcoffee 7y ago
Assuming ample money, resources, and support, height isn't a big deal (for solid state rockets). From my experience as a part of a collegiate (liquid) rocket club, just getting to manufacturing is a major hurdle. There's legal red tape, university specific red tape, insurance/liability, material sourcing, funding, manufacturing, testing etc. Note that some of these steps may require specialized facilities/equipment, transport, etc. Outsourcing (e.g. manufacturing) trades off for added red tape. ITAR is fun. This makes working towards great heights a slow process, and if something goes wrong during testing/launch it's a major set back.
mabbo 7y ago
Rocketry is just plain difficult and expensive. Consider the "Tyranny of Rockets" problem: if you want to send a rocket up 1 km, you need X fuel. But to get to 2 km, you need way more than 2X fuel- because you first have to carry all that extra fuel up 1 km, which takes more energy/fuel, before you can use it to go the other km. And if you want 3 km up... well, you get the idea. It's exponential in cost. Then the problem of the fuel itself. It has to be something super-energy-dense: lots of energy (velocity) for the least mass. The most super energy dense substances are usually used to make bombs, so basically you're building a metal tube with explosives inside and hoping that you can direct the explosion correctly such that your rocket goes up. And then you have to make sure your payload- in this case some sensors to prove you actually went up that high- have to be lifted (mass) and not break. In the case of this team, their previous rocket probably did reach space but the sensors weren't working so they have no evidence! If you want to really learn this stuff, play the game "Kerbal Space Program". It's not accurate in any sense, but it gives you the instincts of why and how rocketry and orbital mechanics work.

kijin 7y ago

The article mixes all sorts of units but doesn't say exactly where the Kármán line is supposed to be in any single unit. The closest it gets is 50 miles plus 60,000 feet, which is a rather confusing way to say 98.75 kilometers. The actual Kármán line is at 100 kilometers. This rocket reached an altitude of 339,800 feet, or 103.57 kilometers. Its maximum speed of 3,386 mph (assuming "normal" miles, not nautical miles) is equivalent to 1.513 kilometers per second [fixed]. It's well below orbital velocity, but good enough for poking into space and coming back down.

aerophilic 7y ago
There is quite a bit of debate around where the “Karman Line” should really be (the boundary to space). Recently there have been efforts to define it as less stringent than the 100km limit: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576518308221 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457651... Potentially bringing it back down to 80km (the original definition was a range between 70-90km).
- luizfzs 7y ago
  We can use Kerbal Space Program as base and set it to 70km
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    I know you're joking, but, KSP models a planet that's different from Earth in a number of ways. On Kerbin there is zero atmospheric drag past 70km; it's not the edge of space, it's the demarcation line at which indefinite stable orbits are possible. That is very different from Earth.
    - fernandopj 7y ago
      KSP is a whole different beast if you use the Real Solar System mod (which you should, once you learn the basics).

railsgirls112 7y ago

This is similar to a project I've been a part of called Operation Space, the difference being we are students not backed by one single university or organization. We've been monitoring USC's progress for months and they have been a great source of motivation, especially being that they held the previous altitude record at 144,000 ft. We are actually launching out of the same site in New Mexico in about a week and looking to break the Karman Line and hopefully this new milestone. Link for anyone interested: https://operationspace.org/ https://operationspace.org/

mysterydip 7y ago
Good luck! I'm envious and inspired :)
breitling 7y ago
Good luck! How expensive would something like this be? Is it something I can casually do with my grown up kids on weekends?
- railsgirls112 7y ago
  Thank you! I don't have exact figures handy but short answer no, not at this scale at least. Manufacturing, design, materials, safety etc. all easily runs in the tens of thousands of dollars. We are on a much tighter budget, but AFAIK USC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single launch.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    The article doesn't really say anything to the parent commenter's question... This was not possible years ago (the part about students being able to do it, not nation states). What improvements in design and tech occured?
- chasd00 7y ago
  It has a lot to do with how much of a craftsman you are too. The really good people in the high power rocketry hobby can get above 100k feet on a budget of maybe $3-4k These rockets are almost always 2 stage designs. The most expensive parts are the motors and electronics. Typically, you'll have redundant flight controllers for the booster and sustainer plus GPS/radio trackers to find them once the rocket eventually lands. They aren't much different than the typical little hobby shop rockets just bigger and faster. The ones i've seen were maybe 8-10' tall, hand rolled carbon or fiberglass fuselages, and peak at around Mach 3.

HubZemke 7y ago

This is incorrect. The first student rocket to reach space was by the United States Air Force Academy https://archive.is/20121212202343/http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123176320 https://archive.is/20121212202343/http://www.af.mil/news/sto... https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwuvfKuNqZxQQ2xudkwtQXB4V0k/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwuvfKuNqZxQQ2xudkwtQXB4V0k... From here: https://twitter.com/skulumani/status/1131351960622391297?s=20 https://twitter.com/skulumani/status/1131351960622391297?s=2...

fernandopj 7y ago
The article seems to contradict it's own title: > making the USC Rocket Lab only the second amateur group to ever send a rocket to space
- EForEndeavour 7y ago
  I'd chalk it up to the ambiguity of natural language: "A Rocket Built by Students Reached Space for the First Time" as in the particular rocket referred to in the title reached space for the first time in that rocket's existence.
  - notahappycamper 7y ago
    That's being too generous. Other than spacex, essentially every rocket that reaches space does so "for the first time". The title is intentionally misleading
    - EForEndeavour 7y ago
      I strongly disagree. The article describes in detail the student group's years of efforts to reach space, culminating in this success after years of failures. Moreover, they're the first collegiate team to make it to space (and the second "amateur" team). The title is not intentionally misleading, just a bit ambiguous.
- plugger 7y ago

chasd00 7y ago

There's a guy in the high power rocketry hobby that is aiming for space this August at the BALLS event in Nevada. He won't say it, but given what he's done in the past, and the pictures of what he's building there's no other reasonable explanation. A guy last year hit 244k feet ( 2/3 the way to the Karman line) on OTC solid rocket motors available to NAR or Tripoli L3 certified amateurs. Granted, it was a very exceptional rocket, but access to space by amateurs is getting closer every day. That rocket https://mach5lowdown.com/2018/11/07/phx4-rocket-launch-to-200000ft/ https://mach5lowdown.com/2018/11/07/phx4-rocket-launch-to-20... BALLS http://www.tripoli.org/Balls http://www.tripoli.org/Balls

frugalmail 7y ago

So that's where that crazy tuition goes.... Also, wonder why not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine ?

mLuby 7y ago
Is there such thing as a solid fuel aerospike? I'd think the spike geometry would still give ambient (maximally efficient) expansion over a range of altitudes but IDK how they'd make that work with solid propellants. I'm sure the students didn't because it's never been done before, and you get an A for succeeding with proven technologies, not failing with unproven ones.

davidhyde 7y ago

The rocket reached 103.57km (100km is considered the edge of space) in altitude to spare anyone from reading this extremely annoying article. The solid fuel based rocket weighed 136kg and at just under 4m in height is impressively small for reaching this altitude. It’s parachutes deployed an it was recovered safely. There.

wallace_f 7y ago
The article really is so annoying, and not just for that reason. There are no links or references to the technological advancements made here along the way. Another: they at least mention the CSXT team in passing (which the article seems to imply to an unwitting reader to not exist), but not even their name. If I were king of a news outlet, I'd rather hire actual enthusiasts to write articles, and editors to touch them up, rather than have this kind of crap.