Tag Archives: SuperDosa

March 2017 meeting

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We started the March 10th monthly meeting a bit late, 7:51pm. As usual, we met in Gardena at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center.

The first item was to discuss the progress of the upcoming RRS symposium to be held Saturday, April 22nd. We have confirmed several speakers and exhibitors including UCLA, USC, Caltech, CSULB, Cal Poly Pomona, Orbital-ATK, Norton Sales, Spaceport America, Mars City Design and the Aerospace Corporation. We still have a few speakers yet to confirm, but we will have a full listing which will be great for our public audience. We encourage everyone to download and share this flyer with everyone who would like to come out to the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena.

rrs symposium flyer 3 rev 1

Osvaldo surprised us all by completing the full-scale mockup of the SuperDosa boosted dart vehicle. The SuperDosa project is the RRS’s recent project to retake the amateur rocketry altitude record and rebuild many of our old capabilities from 20 years ago when the RRS held the record. This will be on display along with RRS standard alpha and beta rockets at the exhibitor hall during the symposium on April 22nd.

SuperDosa full scale mockup(1)

SuperDosa-mockup (2)

Although we’ve been having weekly teleconferences, the meeting offered the opportunity to discuss issues and address questions by all of those in attendance. Dr. Chris Zeineh of the Aerospace Corporation and four students from UCLA’s liquid bi-prop rocket team were in attendance. Frank had printed a few flyers and some of the brochures we plan to have at the symposium.

Our public relations campaign to advertise the RRS symposium is in full gear as we’re trying to get radio and TV spots in the local media market.

Frank also made an Eventbrite posting for the RRS symposium. It’s a free event so there’s no cost to register. Registering allows the RRS to gauge how big our audience might be. We’ll try to have food available at this event. I encourage everyone to register for the symposiuim at this event at the link below.

Eventbrite – RRS symposium (free to register)

John Mariano is working with his contacts at JPL to try to see if we can have the Explorer 1 satellite mockup on display as a really neat piece of space exploration history as this was the United States’ first satellite launched over 50 years ago. We hope we can bring that piece of history to the exhibition.

The Explorer 1 satellite (van Allen, Pickering, von Braun are holding it up)

The RRS has updated our Facebook page to get the word out. The link is below. Our members who are on Facebook should join this group. Anyone else is also welcome to join our Facebook page.

RRS Facebook page

The RRS will create an Instagram account soon which may make viewing our launch event photos and videos much easier. I plan to do this sometime before the next meeting in April.

The weekly teleconferences will continue in the ensuing weeks as we are less than 6 weeks out from the event, but looking to be in good shape. We hope to confirm more speakers and exhibitors very soon.

In other non-symposium related news, the RRS history project is progressing. I made contact with the Caltech Library to acquire electronic copies of three Astro-Jet newsletters from 1945 and 1946 which is when the RRS was known as the “Glendale Rocket Society”. We hope to get these and any other Astro-Jet newsletters added to our library archives soon.

Also, Richard Garcia acquired a nice Marotta solenoid valve from Norton Sales which could come in handy for future projects. The RRS still has plans to build a liquid propellant testing rig in the future.

solenoid valve, Marrotta

Norton Sales – North Hollywood, CA

I am also steadily working on making a simple thrust stand for firing alpha and beta rockets in the near future using the load cell kindly provided by our friends at Interface Force in Arizona.

Interface Force – Load Cells and more

We have rescheduled the March 18th launch event to a week later, March 25th. The girls academic leadership academy (GALA) will be launching four alphas. Larry and I may have another alpha or a beta for this event. We have invited UCLA to attend the launch to show them the Mojave Test Area (MTA) in advance of the two events they will be having with us.

UCLA has confirmed that they would like to conduct a hot-fire test series at the MTA for their IREC rocket systems on April 29th. There will be hybrid and solid motors tests. We also hope to have a few other people conduct launches or hot-firings.

Also, on June 3rd, UCLA will have a launch event at the RRS MTA to conclude the undergraduate class featuring two RRS standard alphas and two RRS standard betas and a set of ten smaller model rockets.

Lastly, USC had a very successful launch of their Fathom II rocket at Spaceport America last week. I invited USC to come and share in their results, but they are still compiling a posting for their website (link below). Also, this Friday they were properly celebrating their success. We hope to read their results soon. Also they have posted photos on their Instagram feed.

USC RPL website

USC RPL – Instagram feed

Our next meeting will be Friday, April 14th. This will be the last one before the symposium (April 22nd). I encourage all of our presenters and exhibitors to come out for this meeting to give you the opportunity to review the space and ask any last minute questions beforehand. Frank Miuccio and I are available anytime to answer questions by phone or email, but sometimes it’s best to walk the space in person.

Let me know if I missed anything or if anything posted here needs correction.
secretary@rrs.org

January 2017 meeting

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Our monthly meeting took place tonight, January 13, 2017. Meeting was called to order at 7:43pm. John Mariano made a motion that we say the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of our meetings. We did so at the January meeting and will do so thereafter.

Robert Kleinberger of Apogee Aeronautics called in to give the RRS a presentation on his company and work he’s done with sounding rockets. He covered a variety of subjects including the boosted dart system such as the SuperLoki.

Dr. Mitchell xanax Spearrin of UCLA came to the meeting today. He discussed the UCLA Rocketry Club activities including prior work with hybrids and IREC program competition. He also mentioned the new projects UCLA would like to do with the RRS.

Planning for the upcoming RRS symposium will begin this month. The RRS symposium is officially scheduled for April 22nd. It will be a considerable effort and require the help of many of our members. It’ll be worth it as we make this all-day event a success. We will have the main room and auditorium. Ideas for wall arts and exhibits are in the works. We’re working on the confirmed speakers list. Frank is asking for RRS members to help out as there is a lot of work to be done to make this event a success.

Larry mentioned that Charles Hoult passed away late last year. He was one of the foremost leaders in sounding rockets having spent decades in the aerospace industry. Upon retirement, he dedicated his life to education teaching at CSULB and actively supported amateur rocketry. A fuller blog post
ambien pills will be forthcoming to honor his passing and contributions.

The “events@rrs.org” email is now available for the public to contact the RRS for alpha build events and the symposium.

Larry has indicated that the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA) is interested in an alpha build event which should take place in the next few months. We look forward to hosting them at the launch event at the MTA. Also, Rise Academy may want to do another launch event.

In closing, a reminder of the importance of sunscreen was given. There are many hazards to consider at the MTA and being in the desert, but this is one that many people ignore and should not.

Meeting was adjourned at 9:30pm as the Gardena Community Center was closing.
https://www.parasailingpanamacitybeach.com/getting-gabapentin/
Next meeting will be February 10th. Let me know if there’s anything I missed or misstated.
secretary@rrs.org

December 2016 meeting

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The RRS held our last monthly meeting of 2016, this Friday, December 9th, at our usual meeting location at the Gardena Recreational Center. We were well attended but started at 8:10pm due to traffic causing problems for some.

The launch event at the MTA of November 12th with the Compton magnate school, Rise Academy, was a very successful event. Four alphas from the kids, one modified alpha from Osvaldo and Dave, and a beta from Larry. Osvaldo brought the recovered keychain camera footage that was taken. The quality was quite good considering such a small keychain sized device and the rough flight environment of the alpha launch. The green plume of the smoke grenade was quite clear. I showed some of my video footage of four of the five launches.

RRS to establish a point of contact with the mayor of Compton to help promote more RRS events. The RRS alpha build events are becoming more popular and this is great. A flyer for the RRS alpha build event is in the works. Certificates of completion for the RRS alpha build events will be a good thing to give at the completion of the event. The RRS alpha build event instructive presentation slides are still in work.

SuperDosa project has progressed slightly. To the visitors and new members in attendance I gave the original October 2016 briefing to reaffirm the purpose of the project to reclaim the amateur altitude record for the RRS. Our starting basis for design has been the SuperLoki. Chris Lujan helped me solve a problem with OpenRocket for the flight simulation. Propellant sample testing is the next step. I acquired a pressure transducer that will be useful for the ballistic evaluation motor tests for burn rate calculations. The design of the BEM is in work. The next meeting for the SuperDosa project will take place before year’s end.

The RRS has been the recipient of a manual hydrotest pump generously donated by Rice Hydro Inc., of Carson City, NV. We are very grateful to Rice Hydro and hope to give a good demonstration of this device in use as we proof tanks and tubing assemblies in the near future.

Rice Hydro Inc – Carson City, NV

The RRS made contact with Apogee Astronautics who owns a few SuperLoki launchers. Osvaldo and I met with the owner, Robert Kleinberger, who was passing through Los Angeles last month on business. The RRS has asked Robert to make a short presentation about sounding rockets and the SuperLoki. Although Robert wasn’t able to present at the December meeting tonight, we hope he’ll be able to send a presentation for next month’s meeting.

Three students from the UCLA Rocket Club came to the meeting, Hayden, Justin and Aaron; Dr. Mitch Spearrin is their co-advisor along with Dr. Richard Wirz who is on sabbatical. UCLA has been testing and flying hybrids (paraffin with nitrous oxide). UCLA is looking to build and fly a liquid rocket. We’re thankful to have UCLA come out tonight and hope to do projects with them in the future.

UCLA Rocket Project (URP)

Oliver and Mark were showing their model rocket, with a H-motor. They had built and tested an excellent dual-deployment parachute system. Also, they generously donated some 4 and 6 inch PVC electrical conduit pipe material for the RRS which may be used for a mockup at the upcoming RRS symposium in April 2017.

Mark and Oliver’s model rocket

The RRS held annual elections for the Executive Council. Election results for 2017 were as follows:
President = Osvaldo Tarditti; Vice President = Frank Miuccio; Secretary = Dave Nordling; Treasurer = Chris Lujan

Richard Garcia was appointed as the RRS Director of Research, an office formerly held by George Dosa himself.

Osvaldo summarized the RRS activities at the MTA for this year which included three junior high school launch events, 2 from Hermosa, 1 from Compton done in 2016. USC also held static fire tests at the MTA.

Mars City Design, TedX in Los Angeles

The Mars City Design organization was discussed again. Three to five prototype projects useful in Mars habitats will be built at the MTA as a field test of concepts. Concrete 3-D printing is a key technology to be demonstrated. The habitat will have real people living inside for the demonstration, if successful, the space can be used for camps and science field trips.

Godspeed, John Glenn. An American legend remembered.

John Glenn passed away this month. The RRS encourages individuals to contribute to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation that was started by him and the rest of the Mercury 7 astronauts.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation history

Astronaut Scholarship site

John F. Glenn memorial

Goddard and his rocket, 1926

Also, this month is the 100th anniversary of Robert H. Goddard’s seminal paper “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes” that was submitted to the Smithsonian for publication. The father of American rocketry who built and flew the first liquid rocket made his mark on history a century ago. I have included a link to Clark University where you can read his paper for yourself.

Clark University – Goddard’s paper

We ran out of time quickly as we had many topics. Some will be brought up in our next meeting. The meeting adjourned at 9:36pm.

Let me know if there’s any additions or corrections to make. Our next meeting will be January 13, 2017 in our usual location at the Gardena Recreational Center.