Rockethome

The High Power Rocket Project

The high power rocket project was a third year project by the University of Leicester for a group of students (me being included) to design and build a real working rocket over the space of 6 weeks.

Project background:

The aim of this project was to design from scratch a functioning rocket capable of sustaining the stress and high g-forces of a solid engine launch, and to carry out a scientific purpose whilst in flight. Our rocket was to contain a small pin hole video camera which was to be used to record live footage of the launch and beam it down real time to a receiver which recorded the stream onto a hard disk. The idea being that using rather simple geometry the video footage can be used to give a measurment of alitude against time thus being able to calculate the acceleration and velocity as a function of time. The onboard flight computer R-Das has the capacity to measure the altitude during flight by comparing pressure differences in the atmosphere, and so the camera test will not only provide a stunning onboard camera footage of the launch (looking downwards), but also allows confirmation of the rockets altitude.

Project Aim:

Project success:

The project was considered to be a 95% success, 5% missing because the parachute deployment (explosive charge in the nose) ripped a small peice of airframe off the rocket causing the harsh envirement of +100mph to rip the nose clean off the rocket and cause it to come plummetting back to earth independant of the parachute which sailed happily off, still attatched to the nose cone.
One of the pictures shows this moment, and the video of the launch if you freeze frame in the right software shows the parachute and nose cone (with the face drawn on) sailing passed the rocket as it begins its journey back down to earth.

In a field, preparing for launch

Photographs

Lunch (ground photo's - Dr Bannister)

After the launch

Check out the on board video footage at myspace!

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