The First Body Section is Dry! Thanks to everyone who helped get this done over spring break!

Sorry for being so late with the updates. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks here but our orders are coming through and we finally have that good momentum going. Our payload module has come in and we will be measuring how long our tube needs to be before we cut it. Right now though, with nothing else in I decided to wait on it so that the rest of our products come in and if there needs to be any last minute changes. One of the things we are trying to do is find a way to internally cap off the ends of the tubes. There is a way to plug the pipe but the pipe plug we are thinking about is almost 5 inches think and that would take up a lot of much needed space. I was thinking about drilling some large threads and taking a PVC cap with the same outer diameter as the inner diameter of our tube so that we could screw them both together without taking up that much space. That would take away some of the material of the tube but, it shouldn’t be a problem I think.

The payload items, themselves have yet to come in. Right now it’s mostly been the computer parts that everyone finds really exciting so weight-wise it is not that heavy yet. Right now the altimeter, the GPS, and the vibrometer I know for sure are going to happen. Wireless telemetry  needs to be figured out a bit but nothing that we can’t overcome. The housing for the Go-Pro camera is being worked on by both Malique and I, but Malique has progressed a little farther along than I have in that regard.

We really do want to get some K-12 school kids involved but time has been tough to come by to swing by the local school to see how interested the kids are.

The electronics team that we were going to share some of the payload space with as been moved into the aluminum tube of the rocket. That does put them at a bit of a disadvantage for telemetry reasons and have had to compensate by moving some of their parts into the nose cone, but this rocket is still a work in progress, so I would be surprised if all of our plans turned out perfect the first time.

I need to come up with a payload check-list so that when the team heads down to Utah, we can check off all the things for the payload section before we send it up to record all the data and video we can. I’ll send that to Phil so we can compile all the check-lists together so that we have a giant master-list we can use before we send the rocket up. That seems to be everything that has happened these last few weeks, lots of hurrying up and waiting for parts to come. Until next time

“One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions.”- Wernher von Braun

Last week, there was a big push to get another carbon fiber test piece made for the rocket. Thanks to Den, Curtis, Kevin, and Harrison, they got it all epoxied and ready to go. They put the aluminum tube with the layup in the oven in the composites shop and heated it to 160°F. This way, the aluminum tube would expand a very small amount and when taken out of the oven, and the aluminum tube contracts, the carbon fiber would be slightly easier to get off. Although the plan sounded great, the oven at some point in the night shut off and the pipe cooled down to 90°F when Den arrived to check on it. Needless to say, the pipe took some extra work to slide the carbon fiber layup off of it- but it happened and the aluminum pipe came out unscathed. This week we will be doing one last test piece and will watch the oven like a hawk!