Tag Archives: RRS

October 2018 meeting

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The RRS met for our monthly meeting on Friday, October 12, 2018, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. As usual, we got started by calling the meeting to order and reading the treasury report. We had a big agenda but covered most of the topics.

[X1]
Richard Garcia wasn’t able to join us at the October meeting. He wanted to report that he has made some design improvements to the RRS standard liquid rocket. He’s finished upgrading his engine design code to be able to analyze a blowdown engine (pressure-fed from the tanks). He also will soon have drawings for a thrust chamber design.

With some luck, I hope he’ll be back into testing at the MTA sometime soon next year.

[X2]
Electro Tech Machining (ETM) in Long Beach, California, specializes in graphite stock, graphite parts and Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM). They are experts and have been a loyal supporter of amateur rocketry groups such as UCLA and USC. The Reaction Research Society is happy to endorse them as they have been a great support to our society member’s projects as well.

Electro Tech Machining – Long Beach, contact information

Contact Cathy Braunsdorf at Electro Tech Machining.

Electro Tech Machining
2000 W. Gaylord Avenue
Long Beach, CA, 90813
(562) 436-9281

Electro Tech Machining in Long Beach, the graphite specialists

Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) – Wikipedia article

I stopped in this week to pick up some round stock for making more graphite nozzle pucks for the ballastic evaluation motor (BEM) that is nearing completion. Graphite makes an excellent high temperature material for nozzle throats or any low ablation surfaces. We have used graphite inserts into reclaimed alpha and beta nozzles over the years at the RRS. Our society members have used graphite throats in their larger solid motor tested at the RRS MTA back in June 2018.

Plastic nozzle puck used for scale against the graphite round stock acquired by the RRS from Electro Tech Machining in Long Beach, CA

Moving into the meeting agenda, we shifted the order a little, but I have kept the numbering the same:

[1]
The latest educational event at Weigand Elementary school in Watts is going very well. The LAPD CSP program continues to help sponsor the event and we get great excitement from the kids. This Friday was the fifth of six educational events where they get to assemble the empty rockets. Osvaldo, Larry and Frank were on hand to help with the build process. The kids are really enjoying the process of learning and painting the team rockets will done in the last session before going out to launch at the RRS’s private testing site, the Mojave Test Area (MTA).

Two of our young participants show their assembled RRS alpha rocket at Weigand Elementary, Frank Miuccio in the background at the right

[2]
The next launch event at the RRS MTA will be the final step in the RRS’s educational program for Weigand Elementary school. We have this scheduled for October 27th and we hope to have cooler weather than in prior events now that the summer has passed. We have nine alphas from Weigand Elementary and three more alphas from our new membership, Wilbur Owens, Xavier Marshall and Michael Lunny.

Xavier Marshall looks over his first RRS alpha, welcome to the club!

[3]
I gave my quarterly briefing on the SuperDosa project at the October meeting. This time, I organized my thoughts and ideas into a presentation to give the RRS a general overview of the project and where we are so far.

Largely, I wanted to reiterate the project’s overall goals to many of the new members who have joined the RRS since the project’s inception in January 2017. The RRS intends to retake the amateur rocketry altitude record and in the process reopen our ability to make larger solid rocket motors and expand our reach both in our own community and literally with payloads ultimately flying above the atmosphere.

SuperDosa quarterly report, Oct-2018

I also acknowledged the recent progress of some of our new members formerly of the Chaminade Rocketry Club. Also, USC had a launch attempt with their Traveller III rocket, part of their Spaceshot Initiative. Unfortunately, instrumentation was not functioning but the flight looked to be nearly perfect. I hope USC will come present their recent accomplishments at a future RRS meeting.

Materials acquisition and some discussion about how to proceed with the propellant burn rate testing were the highlights of the discussion. More progress needs to be made in a few areas for completing the first prototype:

(a) Complete the design of all parts for the first prototype (6-inch booster)

(b) Begin prototyping instrumented dart payloads to practice flying and recovering these while getting good data. Making these devices work under the tight and unforgiving conditions that they must.

(c) More work in parachute recovery

(d) Estimating friction heat loads and heat mitigation strategies for the payload

Much of this prototyping work can be done at the MTA by flying smaller subscale vehicles and testing subsystems to prove they can work. More importantly, these tests give the society practice for the large vehicle testing which will reclaim the altitude record for the RRS.

The response to the SuperDosa project’s progress was very constructive and many new ideas were offered. I’m thankful to Frank, Steve Majdali, Larry, Osvaldo, Bill Behenna, Drew and Xavier for their inputs. I have taken notes and given actions to other members who are willing to help advance key areas of the project. Unfortunately, this topic was to be the last of the evening as my presentation easily exceeded the 20 minutes I intended.

The next quarterly report for the SuperDosa project will be January 11, 2019, and I hope to report a great deal of progress.

[4]
We had a last minute addition to the agenda, with Steve Majdali talking about black powder rockets and some very nice black powder rocket making tools he acquired while on travel. Black powder rockets are a classic form of amateur rocketry and involve many techniques that are broadly useful in other areas such as composite grain motors.

Steve Majdali shows the RRS his metal spindle for a cored grain type of 3-inch black powder rocket

Steve gave us a lot of great information specific to black powder making, pressing and a wealth of other practical information. Based on this new avenue of research, I felt the RRS would benefit more if Steve discussed this topic in more length in a stand-alone article soon to be published here on the RRS.ORG website.

[5]
The RRS has been in contact with the Additive Rocket Corporation (ARC) of San Diego. They are a startup company in San Diego with the goal of making high performance rocket motors using their novel design methodologies and 3D metal printing equipment. Discussions are still underway and thus there wasn’t much to tell. ARC was an exhibitor at the 75th anniversary symposium this year in April.

Additive Rocket Corporation (ARC) of San Diego at the 75th anniversary RRS symposium

[6]
In my discussions with ARC, they were kind enough to offer to 3D print a simple small liquid rocket chamber I designed. Prices are not cheap, but this futuristic manufacturing technique offers a great deal of complexity that is not easily nor cheaply replicated by traditional means. I have been in discussions with ARC and hope to have more to present at the next RRS meeting.

125 lbf thrust chamber design, uncooled; prototype for the RRS standard liquid project

[7]
Alastair Martin could not join us at October’s meeting. I was going to have him discuss the current topics of interest at the recent 21st Annual Mars Society Convention held this summer. Alastair is very involved with the Mars Society and the RRS.

Alastair will be at the November RRS meeting so we’ll put this topic on the next agenda.

[8]
New RRS members, Wilbur Owens and Xavier Marshall, are active with the Experimental Aircraft Association, chapter #96, at the Compton Airport in the Los Angeles area. EAA-96 is a like-minded group of enthusiasts centered on experimental aircraft. The EAA-96 has hangar space and a range of machining tools offered to their members.

Experimental Aircraft Association, Spirit of 96

Xavier had mentioned at the last meeting that the EAA would love to host a visit by the RRS. Accepting the EAA’s invitation, the RRS has scheduled a visit to the EAA in Compton on November 3rd at 10:00AM. The EAA will give an hour tour of their facilities and projects. We hope to foster a strong relationship between the EAA and the RRS.

Talk with Xavier Marshall, Wilbur Owens, the RRS president, vice president or secretary for details.

Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) hangar
1017 W. Alondra Blvd.
Compton, CA, 90220
(310) 612-2751

One of the key points of discussion at this visit will be to discuss how the RRS and EAA can help each other or participant in joint projects. The RRS is interested in using the EAA hangar facilities if they are available. Annual membership at the EAA is $40 to the EAA national society and $40 more to the local chapter at the Compton Airport. As I understand but must confirm, with EAA-96 chapter membership, RRS membership can have access to the machining tools for building rocketry parts for those of us without facilities in our own homes.

Xavier had also mentioned that hangar storage was often very cost-effective which could be a service that the RRS could use as we look to expand our shop capabilities to our membership.

EAA Chapter 96 hangar, Compton Airport

The EAA hangar is just straight east and not very far from our regular meeting location in Gardena at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center just north of Artesia Blvd. (CA-Hwy 91). The address is above.

[9]
Osvaldo’s recent successful design of an alpha parachute recovery system was not able to be covered. We may expand this topic into a fully illustrated RRS.ORG article if we can not get this topic on next month’s agenda. This has been a quiet success and definitely worthy of exhibition to our membership.

[10]
Jerry Fuller of Aerospace Corporation had indicated interest in building and testing a larger subscale prototype of his liquid-infused hybrid motor grain. Aerospace had earlier this year successfully demonstrated a smaller prototype in flight at the RRS MTA. In choosing the next larger design, he has selected a common model rocketry size (98 mm) just under 4-inches which will allow him to use commercially available rocket body parts. Jerry is active with our friends at Rocketry Organization of California (ROC).

At this time, he is still working on the design until resources can be allocated. The RRS has invited him to present his results and the new prototype he has in mind. The RRS is happy to support private groups with a testing area and a community of amateur enthusiasts happy to assist.

[11]
The RRS had discussed having a small group of our membership go out to the next ROC event which is held the 2nd Saturday of the month. Unfortunately, neither I nor Drew were able to go this month. With the Friday night rains falling on the city, it might not bode well for the event at the Lucerne Valley as they must operate on the dry lake bed.

We are looking to coming out to the November ROC event in the Lucerne Valley and hope we can bring other RRS memmbers with us. In particular, some of our members are interested in getting more practical experience through the NAR or Tripoli prefect at ROC. Moreover, some of the RRS membership is seeking experience and support as we acquire letters of recommendation for the California pyro-op licensing in rocketry.

[12]
Saturday seminars have not yet been scheduled, but the RRS is still committed to offering an extended time period for fuller discussions by invited speakers.

[+] RRS member, Jim French, is a speaker of which we would be very excited to have. Jim was a development engineer at the famed Santa Susanna Field Laboratory here in Los Angeles during the development of the reliable and powerful H-1 engine and the injector for the massive F-1 engine. Later, he worked at TRW on the reliable, hypergolic fueled, Apollo Descent engine at TRW at their San Juan Capistrano testing site (now defunct). His book, “Firing a Rocket Engine” is available on Amazon and it is a great read.

Amazon.com – James A. French, Firing a Rocket Engine

[+] Reaction Research Society founder, George James, is another speaker we have been wanting to have. His founding work with his other organization, the Rocket Research Institute (RRI) was a great topic he covered only briefly at the 75th anniversary symposium in April.

[+] Rocketdyne retiree and materials expert, John Halczuk, is another potential speaker on the subject of his extensive research of the V-2 rocket. He gave an excellent talk last year at California State University in Northridge, on history of the V-2’s development and deployment. The V-2 guided many design decisions still used in modern rocketry today in both the United States and particularly in the former Soviet Union.

We were not able to discuss this topic in detail, but more information will be forthcoming, hopefully in the form of an announcement of our first Saturday seminar at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center on a Saturday morning.

[13]
The next RRS symposium date in 2019 will be set soon. Based on the powerful success of the 2018 event, the RRS has decided to further the tradition one more year. We hope to have an even better mixture of universities, private companies and government agencies.

Date to be announced in November, the RRS will hold the 2019 symposium at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena

There was no time to formally raise the subject, but it was decided by the council members present at the October meeting that the 2019 RRS symposium date will be formally set by an offline discussion and the date officially announced at the next RRS meeting on November 9, 2018.

[IN CLOSING]
The next meeting of the RRS will be November 9th at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena.

We will most certainly discuss the results of the MTA launch event scheduled for Saturday, October 27, 2018. I will build the agenda starting at the end of the month. Please contact the RRS secretary for ideas and information on meeting topics.

secretary@rrs.org

As per our constitution, the RRS will hold its annual nominations of officers for the next calendar year 2019 at the November 9, 2018 meeting. Voting by the administrative membership will take place thereafter and managed by our election chairman. Results will be announced at the next meeting on December 14, 2018.

Thank you for reading.

—- —-

MTA launch event, 2018-08-18

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The RRS had a small event at our private Mojave Test Area (MTA) on August 18, 2018, to allow Richard Garcia to test his liquid rocket motor. Richard built a pressure-fed, 1000-lbf kerosene-LOX motor including all of the static fire test stand equipment and control valves.

desert morning at the MTA

Richard Garcia reviews his list in the MTA blockhouse

Switch panel and electrical cabling

Richard had spent a good part of Friday and early Saturday getting his test stand mounted and ready. He had made arrangements to share the contents of a liquid oxygen dewar to supply the oxidizer he needed for his test with other RRS member, Sam Austin. Sam was also preparing to fire his liquid rocket motor at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) site just south of the RRS MTA on this same day. Arriving early in the morning, I was glad to help Richard with the final preparations at the RRS MTA to start the initial checkouts and ultimately a successful hot-fire test.

Richard checks the wiring and pneumatic line connections

Richard’s 1000 lbf kerosene/LOX motor was designed for a chamber pressure of 300 psig and used a pintle-type of injector with an ablative lined chamber and graphite nozzle.

Richard Garcia tests both flow paths of his pintle injector in water flow

Ablative liner, G10, sits inside the combustion chamber of Richard Garcia’s 1000 lbf kerosene-LOX liquid rocket motor

Graphite nozzle within the chamber assembly of 1000 lbf kerosene-LOX motor

He brought his motor hardware to the January 2018 meeting, but now it was finally time to prove his design with a hot-fire test.

Richard shows his liquid rocket motor at the January 2018 meeting

Richard’s test used a high pressure nitrogen bottle to pressurize his propellant tanks, the left one for liquid oxygen (LOX) and the right one for kerosene. This regulated inert gas source also provided pneumatic pressure for the propellant valve actuators.

Richard’s static fire tanks and equipment mounted and ready for test, 2018-08-18

The top half of the thrust stand with the tanks and valves is fixed to the structure. The engine is suspended below and is secured to a plate which was mounted to an S-type load cell. These devices are an affordable means of measuring both compressive and tensile forces by the internal strain gauges built into them.

An S-type load cell used for thrust measurements in the static fire equipment

Caution was taken to keep the motor clean during handling and installation by caps on the ports and closing off the nozzle with aluminum foil.

View of Richard’s 1000-lbf motor from below; aluminum foil covering the nozzle exit to prevent foreign object debris (FOD) in the injector

With the validation testing complete and all valves are working, fuel was loaded, then preparations to load the cryogenic liquid oxygen (photo courtesy of Rick Maschek of FAR)

Careful review of the firing procedure before getting down to testing

Preparing for LOX transfer (photo courtesy of Rick Maschek of FAR)

All propellants loaded, everyone in the blockhouse, running the final checks before starting the countdown (photo courtesy of Rick Maschek of FAR)

The view from the blockhouse, a nice clean start of the liquid motor (photo courtesy of Rick Maschek of FAR)

Another view of the rocket firing from Richard’s tripod-mounted camera, 2018-08-18

A few seconds later with the dust kicking up from the motor firing, 2018-08-18

Closeup view of the rocket firing from a small mounted camera; it blew over from the firing but capture this image

Most of the testing seemed to work well. The motor had a clean start and stable run time for the full 5 seconds duration that Richard had predicted. Post-test inspection showed the engine to be in very good condition.

A view from up the nozzle after hot-fire; all looks good

Surface of the 1-inch thick steel plate was melted from the impinging plume; perhaps we’ll mount the next engine a bit higher

Tank pressure measurements were able to be recorded, however the thrust and chamber pressure (Pc) measurements were corrupted. Richard is working on downloading the hot-fire video to be posted on the RRS YouTube channel.

Soon he’ll disassemble the injector and chamber to see if the motor can be fired again. This was a great success for the RRS and we hope this to be the start of several liquid motor hot-fire tests as the RRS continues to improve on this powerful type of rocket.

Richard Garcia stands next to his 1000-lbf kerosene-LOX liquid rocket motor at the RRS MTA, 2018-08-18

I hope that Richard will be able to present his results at the next RRS monthly meeting on the 2nd Friday of the month. The next RRS meeting will be Friday, September 14, 2018 at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California.

The RRS would also like to thank Mark Holthaus and Rick Maschek of FAR for their assistance on this test.

***

MTA launch event, 2018-06-07

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The RRS held another smaller launch event at our private testing facility (MTA) in the Mojave desert on Thursday, June 7, 2018. This was a special event for the RRS members from the former Chaminade High School Rocketry group led by Jack Oswald. They have been working hard on their solid motor design. After a successful test series on a single 6-inch Bates grain, they moved up to a vehicle sized test with multiple six-inch grain modules installed. Dave Crisalli and Osvaldo Tarditti were available to assist in the loading and installation process making ready for testing. The vehicle static fire test was oriented nozzle up with a load cell at the bottom of the frame secured to the vertical test stand at the RRS MTA.

The static fire testing was for a 10,000 lbf-sec flight motor. The motor was expected to perform at 1500 psi, produce over 2+ tons (>4000 lbf) of peak thrust, and burn its 43 lbs of composite BATES grains in approximately 3 seconds.

Osvaldo had video of the firing where we got the still photos below. Osvaldo will bring the video footage to the meeting tomorrow on Friday, 6/8/2018, where everyone can see what may have happened.

Vertical static fire of a solid rocket motor at the RRS MTA, 06-07-2018

The solid motor started okay. The nozzle plume looked good for the first few moments.

Jack’s motor starts off just fine. A nice nozzle plume is evident.

Unfortunately, shortly after start, about 2 seconds into the burn, the pressure climbed substantially to 2300 psi causing a nozzle failure and subsequent burnout.

It looked like something disturbed the flow in the frame just before the huge fireball and the disintegration of the nozzle

After the nozzle failure, the solid motor spews chunks of fiery propellant until it fully burned out.

In the coming months, Jack’s team will make another motor reducing the Kn factor and significantly reinforcing the nozzle design to carry through with their plans of launching a boosted dart to an altitude of 150,000 feet sometime this year. This is still an impressive accomplishment and with some perseverance, success will come. More details to come as things proceed.

—

During the June 7th event, Osvaldo took some time to search down-range for rockets with his extractor tool. As luck would have it, he found one of the RRS standard beta rockets launched by UCLA in 2017. It was found about 3000 feet downrange which isn’t terribly far away. The winds must have been very favorable to allow the beta to plant itself much closer to the launch site. From the photo, you can see that this RRS beta had a fin-can type of fixture at the tail which is easier to manufacture.

Beta planted 3000 feet downrange from the launch rails, straight west more or less

The convenience of pulling the rocket straight from the ground with the manual winch is tremendous, but the method often shears off the payload tube in the hole. Shoveling does have the advantage of removing most if not all of the parts if one is inclined to spend the hours necessary to dig four feet below the surface. The payload tube from the beta unfortunately was not extracted with the propellant tube. Osvaldo will bring the beta to show everyone at the meeting tomorrow.

Osvaldo lifts the beta rocket from out of the desert floor

We’ll have our monthly meeting (every 2nd Friday of the month) on June 8th at 7:30PM sharp. Please stop in!