Tag Archives: RRS

May 2017 meeting

Posted on by

The RRS monthly meeting was held May 12, 2017. We started at 7:41pm.

The RRS was glad to welcome LAPD Southeast officers Acuna and Terrazas from the Community Safety Partnership (CSP). The nationally recognized CSP program has been very successful in improving community relations in areas of Los Angeles and the RRS is discussing how to bring one of our classes to students in Watts this summer.

LAPD Community Safety Partnership

We had a few parents stop in the meeting with their kids also interested in working with the RRS and learning more about membership with our society.

To all groups interested in working with the RRS, our contact is:
events@rrs.org

The RRS was glad to welcome several new student members from UCLA and a few new full members this month. We had a launch event on April 29th that helped UCLA test several of their technologies in advance of the 2017 IREC competition at the First Annual Spaceport America Cup in New Mexico.
2017 IREC competition – Spaceport America

For those interesting in applying for membership with the RRS, our application form is available on our RRS.ORG website under “FORMS”.

RRS.ORG – FORMS, membership

The RRS will hold a launch event at the MTA on June 3rd. UCLA will launch a pair of RRS standard alphas and betas with a few smaller carbon-fiber and fiberglass rockets with 1 lb air-frames and F50 motors. This launch event is the culmination of the undergraduate class, MAE 157A, which is a fluid dynamics and aerodynamics instructional laboratory for the Spring 2017 Quarter at UCLA led by Professor R. Mitchell Spearrin. The RRS is glad to support UCLA in giving university students a place to demonstrate their hands-on knowledge.

UCLA MAE instructional labs

Drew Cortopassi of the Aerospace Corporation paid us a visit. Aerospace Corporation is interested in conducting some tests with the RRS at the Mojave Test Area. Once a formal written request is submitted to the RRS, the society will examine the best way to proceed.

For any private organizations wanting to work with the RRS, please contact the RRS, president, Osvaldo Tarditti.
president@rrs.org

This month, a member managed to acquire a cryogenic LNG tank that would be very useful asset at the MTA. The RRS is working on the logistics for bringing this new acquisition to the MTA for use in future liquid propulsion projects.

The SuperDosa project update will have to wait for next month’s meeting as we ran out of time.

I have been updating the RRS membership roster, but some did not receive the email for the symposium back in mid-April. As people move, sometimes our contact information falls out of date. To all of our membership, please contact me to make sure your email and other contact information is up to date.
secretary@rrs.org

Meeting adjourned at 9:11pm. Our next meeting will be June 9th. If there’s anything I missed or needs correction, please let me know.
secretary@rrs.org

MTA launch event, 2017-03-25

Posted on by

The RRS was pleased to host a launch event at our Mojave Test Area (MTA) for the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA) of L.A. USD on Saturday, March 25, 2017. The event had an excellent turnout.

GALA at the MTA, panorama

GALA students on the MTA observation deck

Longtime member Dave Crisalli was our pyro-op for the event and I was able to serve as his assistant in conducting the launch of twelve alphas and a beta rocket.

Dave Crisalli

Osvaldo and Dave

If anyone else has photos of the event that they’d like to share, please email me:
secretary@rrs.org

Before we got started, we had a safety briefing showing how launch will take place and what to do before, during and after firing. To give an appreciation for the propellants commonly used in amateur rocketry, at a safe distance, we burned a sample of the micrograin.

John Mariano addresses the group

sample micrograin propellant burning

And a composite grain that Larry made for the demonstration

composite grain, before and after

AP composite grain, sample burn

We had 12 alphas and 1 beta for launch. GALA did a great job in painting their rockets. The bright colors not only distinguished one from the other, but they also made finding them downrange by their tailfins in the desert much easier to do. GALA also was wise to number their rockets. We took good notes on the flight times of each (35-38 seconds which is typical). With the wind noise, it wasn’t always possible to hear the faint thump. GALA did well in keeping quiet after launch to hear the thump and figure the direction where it was heard.

GALA rockets ready for launch

alpha launch rails facing out to the gate

GALA ready for launch

alpha launch 03-25-2017

Osvaldo equipped the last of the 12 alphas (all the way to the right in the photo below) with another fin-mounted keychain camera similar to what was done at the November 2016 launch event. Alas, it was not to be, the camera was destroyed and no footage was captured.

12 alphas laying in the rack

The beta was without payload except for the wooden adapter and a plastic Easter egg half as a nose cone. A buzzer and a strobe device was mounted to the beta fins in hopes to be better able to locate the vehicle in the search. Unfortunately, the beta, too was lost. No sound of impact was heard.

alphas and a beta (upside down)

Loading the beta into the rack

RRS beta launch 2017-03-25

Dr. Mitchell Spearrin of UCLA came by the event to tour the MTA as the RRS looks forward to working UCLA on their upcoming projects. Dr. Spearrin brought an Estes Ascender model rocket of his own to test at the MTA with a commercial F-motor. At the end of the GALA rockets, the model rocket was launched. I didn’t get any photos. I believe the winds carried the light rocket pretty far east of the MTA site. I understand that the rocket wasn’t able to be recovered.

Estes Ascender

Several of the alpha rockets launched by GALA were able to be recovered through hard work and sweat. I think of the 12 launches, 7 were recovered? An excellent job by the GALA team in finding and recovering a lot of the hardware.

GALA recovers an alpha

GALA alpha extracted

The RRS wants to thank GALA for their participation and hope they enjoyed the day as we did! We hope to have GALA come back for another event. Also, many thanks to Don Purpurra for contributing his photos of the event. The shots of the alphas and betas he took were incredible!
GALA Academy

If any other schools or groups are interested in participating in one of our build events, please contact our events coordinator, Larry Hoffing:
events@rrs.org

blockhouse view with the launch button gear

Our next RRS meeting will be Friday, April 14, 2017, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, CA. This will be the last meeting before the RRS symposium which will be held Saturday, April 22nd at the same meeting location in Gardena. We encourage all of our participants to come by the Friday, April 14th meeting in advance of the symposium.

There will be speakers and an exhibition hall with universities and groups from government and private companies in attendance.

the latest RRS symposium flyer

Our latest flyer is linked here for download. Please share and post!
rrs symposium flyer 320

We also have tickets to the symposium being offered through an Eventbrite link given below. The event is free. We encourage everyone who’s interested in coming to sign up as this helps us get a better idea of how many people are coming.
Eventbrite – RRS symposium (free to register)

If I missed anything or if anything is misstated, please contact me:
secretary@rrs.org

UCLA Tin Can project, CoDR

Posted on by

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).

FAR website, Launch Contest

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.