Tag Archives: symposium

June 2022 Virtual Meeting

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by Dave Nordling, President, Reaction Research Society

The Reaction Research Society held its monthly meeting by teleconference on June 10, 2022. The meeting covered several recent topics and we welcomed new member, Rushd Julfiker.:

We discussed the two recent events at the RRS MTA. Firing reports have been posted for each.

5/21: YMCA student launch event

6/4: UCLA Senior Capstone project launches

The society has had a few groups interested in using the MTA in the next month. Formal requests to use the MTA must be sent by email to the RRS president with specific dates requested.

Wilbur Owens’ loader in action on 5/21/2022 at the RRS MTA.

Dimitri Timohovich and Osvaldo Tarditti went to the MTA on Sunday, 6/5/22 to disassemble and examine the condition of the loader used at the MTA and owned by member, Wilbur Owens. The hydraulic cylinders will require a complete rebuild to return the machine to working order. The backhoe and loader has been a very useful asset to the society and as such the repairs will be paid by the society. Our security cameras are working well to monitor the site in our absence.

The 40th annual Large and Dangerous Rocket Ships (LDRS40) event by the Tripoli Rocketry Association is being hosted by the Rocketry Organization of California (ROC) in Lucerne Valley this weekend. Some of the RRS will be attending. it is an excellent event that brings many groups together and this year it is back in southern California.

lrds40.org

Progress is being made on the new restroom facility. The septic system and leach field will go in soon. Dimitri provided updates on the container interior which should be finished by month’s end. The next step will be adding the roof platform and water tanks followed by completing the electrical systems.

Site maintenance and upgrades were discussed for projects after the new restroom facility is complete including more water storage and fire suppression gear. We could also use some metal cabinets and industrial shelving to better organize the contents of our new 40-foot storage container.

We have had a persistent problem with nails and metal debris puncturing tires at the MTA. One solution to this problem is a magentic sweeper which can pull up and remove any iron pieces left in the shallow layers of sand and dust.

Magnetic sweepers make picking up nails, bolts and other iron debris simple.

The society has bought two of these devices. With some dedicated and coordinated efforts, our site can be cleaned of this hazard. We will be asking our membership to spend some time sweeping the MTA, collecting the findings and disposing of them in the burn pit.

The north pad (foreground) by the Dosa Building is a convenient spot for loading and unloading.

The society has bought a new 1-ton gantry crane, trolley and chain hoist. This equipment will be useful in loading and unloaiding heavy materials on and off pickup trucks. Items such as cryogenic liquid cylinders would benefit from having a simple means of lifting them on and off with no power source required. The gantry crane will have the wheels removed and will be permanently mounted to a fixed foundation at the north pad by the Dosa Building.

An example of a gantry crane, trolley and chain hoist lfiting a heavy article on or off a pickup truck.

After some consideration, the executive council decided it would be best to postpone the next RRS Symposium until the spring of 2023. It takes a significant amount of preparation and we felt it best to wait to begin in the new year when we will celebrate our 80th anniversary. Before the pandemic, we had three increasingly successful annual events and we look forward to restarting them soon.

Next meeting will be July 8th as they happen on every 2nd Friday of the month. Our meetings will remain by teleconference but we are checking with the Ken Nakaoka Community Center about returning to in-person meetings soon. We will continue to have the teleconference feature even after we return to in-person meetings.

To attend our meetings, contact the RRS secretary.

secretary@rrs.org

Speaker List for the 2019 RRS Symposium

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The RRS is glad to announce our list of presenters at the 2019 Reaction Research Society Space and Rocketry Symposium on Saturday, April 27, 2019. This all-day public event will be starting at 8:45am, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California and run to 5pm. The community center is right next door to the Gardena Police Department.

Welcome to all space and rocketry enthusiasts!

Sessions will be 25 minutes each with a brief 5-minute question and answer period. We’re glad to have representatives from industry, federal and state government agencies and academia all present for this event. We’re also glad to the many exhibitors including Rocketry Organization of California, Spaceport LA, Aerospace Corporation and Additive Rocket Corporation joining us in the ballroom.

The morning schedule for the 2019 RRS symposium

Breaking the list into two parts, the symposium continues into the afternoon. We have decided not to hold the panel session at the end as we were able to fill our roster quite easily. We’re very thankful to the many presenters able to come share their thoughts and ideas with our public audience.

The afternoon schedule for the 2019 RRS sympsoium

The symposium as of this posting has 380 (free) tickets sold on Eventbrite. We expect to have the same great crowd as last year and hopefully more can share the event with us. This will be our last symposium for at least two years, so please come join us if you can. If not, you can always find us at the next RRS monthly meeting (May 10, 2019).

The Reaction Research Society is proud to hold the 2019 Space and Rocketry Symposium at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, CA, April 27, 2019, starting at 8:45am.

Ken Nakaoka Community Center
1670 West 162nd Street
Gardena, California, 90247
(310) 217-9537

Gardena is in the south bay of Los Angeles
Easy access from the I-405 on Western Avenue or using the CA Hwy. 91

Come see what we have in store for 2019!

MTA launch, 2019-04-06

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Dave Nordling, Secretary, RRS.ORG

The Reaction Research Society (RRS) had another launch event at the Mojave Test Area (MTA). We had a nice cool day for the launch with a little wind. The winter seasonal rains left the land green which was a lovely change to the usual desert brown.

The RRS sign welcomes our guests to the MTA. The winter seasonal rains had turned the land green.
Desert flora in bloom downrange of the RRS MTA

We were pleased to be joined by California State Fire Marshal, Ramiro Rodriguez, who came out to see our amateur rocketry group in action. David Crisalli was our pyro-op for the event and I was glad to apprentice under him once again for this event.

RRS events coordinator, Larry Hoffing; RRS member and pyro-op, Dave Crisalli, California State Fire Marshal, Ramiro Rodriguez; and RRS secretary, Dave Nordling

Also joining us was the students at University of Southern California’s Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (USC RPL). The students had prepared a 6-inch solid motor for static fire test. They were demonstrating an improved carbon-phenolic nozzle design. They arrived the night before and made preparations all morning.

The name of USC’s 6-inch solid motor was “Poise”

USC still had a few more steps to go in their preparations before our other guests from Compton Elementary arrived. LAPD CSP and the RRS were glad to bring another class of young minds to see firsthand a rocket in flight. After all had arrived and settled, we held our safety briefing with our pyro-op, Dave Crisalli.

Students, LAPD officers, USC and the RRS gather in front of the George Dosa building for the safety briefing.
Ramiro relates practical advise on safety to the students of USC RPL.
Everyone safe in the observation bunker. We’re ready to launch.

We had six of our standard alphas made by the kids at Compton Elementary. This launch event is the final day in the educational sessions we do with local schools thanks to our partnership with the LAPD CSP.

5 of the 6 alphas sit in the rack; Osvaldo’s alpha with a parachute sits to the left.

We loaded each of the rockets in the numerical order they were labelled. Each team had their own color scheme to help make them unique. Reds and blues stand out well against the desert browns and green of the brush.

A very well timed shot of an RRS alpha just clearing the box rails.
A not-so well timed shot just a split-second too slow on the shutter.

After the last alpha from Compton Elementary, we launched Osvaldo’s alpha with a parachute recovery system packed in the payload tube. The parachute deployment system has a simple timer circuit that starts when a pin is pulled as the rocket speeds away off the rails. The red flagged plug in the photo is the safety pin to prevent accidental activation of the payload.

Osvaldo’s customized alpha rocket with a parachute recovery system (left in the photo).

Unfortunately, the parachute system didn’t deploy after launch. It’s possible that the timer deployed the parachute too early which the forward pressure against the payload tube may have held the system in place. The other possibility is the timer didn’t start at all. Either way, the recovery of Osvaldo’s rocket had to be done like all the others… with a shovel.

After the last of the alphas fired, LAPD CSP packed up Compton Elementary for the long ride home. The RRS is grateful for the chance to show young people the excitement of rocketry in the Mojave desert.

Dave Crisalli talks wtih USC as they made their solid motor ready for static fire. USC had several cameras ready to record the 11 second firing.
Dave oversees the careful installation of the igniter system into the core of the solid motor.

The USC RPL team was ready after waiting through our fusillade of micrograin alphas. With final preparations made and instrumentation checking out, the installation of the igniter package on the end of a long sacrificial stick was inserted to the proper depth. Standing back and bringing everyone to safety, USC began their countdown.

Still capture from video taken from the RRS MTA blockhouse. The motor ran full duration.
Post hot-fire inspection showed the carbon-phenolic nozzle still in tact.

USC had predicted a peak thrust of 800 lbf and a burn duration of 11 seconds. Actual burn time matched predictions, but thrust levels may have been short of expectations. USC was crunching the data as the RRS moved on to recovery of the alphas from down-range.

We were fortunate to find three of the alphas from the launch event. They were found north-west of the launch site which was unexpected. Another alpha from last year’s event was also found.

One of the three alphas we recovered later in the afternoon.

Osvaldo’s ratcheting extractor tool came in handy once again to avoid the back-breaking work of shoveling out an alpha once it’s found.

Securing the chain links in a circle near the nozzle throat gives the steel cable something to grasp as the ratchet progressively pulls the rocket from the ground in the same direction it entered.
Osvaldo’s alpha with a parachute was one of the alphas we recovered. Sadly, the parachute system did not deploy and the alpha returned ballistically with the parachute still packed inside.

The next RRS meeting will be Friday, April 12th, at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena. This will be our last meeting before the 2019 RRS symposium on Saturday, April 27th. We’ll have more information posted here on RRS.ORG very soon.