The RRS was glad to participate in the Conceptual Design Review (CoDR) of UCLA’s Tin Can project on Wednesday night, March 1st. This project will have UCLA build a liquid bi-propellant rocket to be flown in competition with other schools at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) site just south of the RRS Mojave Test Area (MTA).
Richard Garcia, RRS director of research
Dave Nordling, RRS secretary
The goal is to reach a specific target altitude using a liquid bi-propellant propulsion system (45,000 ft target, 30,000 ft minimum) with a minimum payload weight (1 kg) provided by FAR that includes an altitude tracking device. The winner will get $50K and the contest is jointly sponsored by the Mars Society. The UCLA team has already been organized with requirements documents provided and subsystem leads designated. Propellant selection was made (RP-1 and nitrous oxide) and the basic design parameters were set for this pressure-fed rocket.
The RRS has offered to support UCLA in the design and testing of key subsystems including propulsion at the RRS MTA. The RRS is thankful for the invitation to share our experience in this ambitious project and we look forward to working with UCLA in the coming months as the project advances to the preliminary design phase and beyond.