School Project

[mojoey]

Simple chutes should be enough to recover them. Also, depending on the motor, you wont have that long from launch to ET sep. So a Shuttle might not be the best choice in the world. Why not a multistage Saturn V?

[george7378]

EPQ - I've just finished one of those myself - I don't know if it's the same thing. I did mine on orbital debris, so there was no practical stuff in it. Good luck!

[Will]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojoey

 Simple chutes should be enough to recover them. Also, depending on the motor, you wont have that long from launch to ET sep. So a Shuttle might not be the best choice in the world. Why not a multistage Saturn V?

I like the idea of having one that glides back to Earth under remote control. How should I shape the Orbiter itself as it's quite a complected shape to build from scratch, possibly a balsa tube for a simplified fuselage shape, balsa carved wings, and maybe some very difficult balsa carving for the cockpit area. The SRBs could just be basic tube rockets and the ET a similar idea (but no motor). What motors should I use (one in the orbiter, one in each SRB bearing in mind the separation method above)?
Also what do you think of the idea of the method of separating the SRBs and ET? Bearing in mind they couldn't have a chute this way (or could they?).

[Will]

Ok an awful number of people have told me a Shuttle with full staging, glider recovery etc will be nigh impossible for a beginner to do by the end of this year. As such, we (I have enlisted a minion) will probably go for a three stage Saturn V but I still plan to do something a bit different, maybe a semi-controlled landing of the CM (though I'm not too fond of that as it seems a bit of a gimmick). A potential problem is chute deployment on the CM as it won't have a motor. Perhaps a small pin or something could be set to activate after a set time and deploy the chutes? What computer programs are there that could model this?

[Will]

We have been doing some thinking and thought it might be interesting to find an old/untried/theoretical rocket design and see how it would perform. We will make calculations/simulations and compare these to the actual flight data (we will cram the rocket with instruments such as an altimeter, accelerometer, ASI etc). We will have to use a motor with equivalent thrust/Isp (scaled down of course) to the fuel the rocket would have used. We have looked on the internet but despite how easy I thought it might be we can't find any old designs. Any ideas?

Thanks (again),
Will

[Warthaug]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will

 We have been doing some thinking and thought it might be interesting to find an old/untried/theoretical rocket design and see how it would perform. We will make calculations/simulations and compare these to the actual flight data (we will cram the rocket with instruments such as an altimeter, accelerometer, ASI etc). We will have to use a motor with equivalent thrust/Isp (scaled down of course) to the fuel the rocket would have used. We have looked on the internet but despite how easy I thought it might be we can't find any old designs. Any ideas?

Thanks (again),
Will

An orion, although I'd avoid the nukes...

Bryan

[Ghostrider]

Well, it could work. Orion was demonstrated with small conventional charges. If you can put your hands on some charges (serious firecrackers could do) all you need is a way to ignite and drop them from the vessel.

[Warthaug]

I'm thinking that its probably a no-go for a school project - I'm surprised that making a motor is allowed (the OP checked, I hope). I've built rocket motors in the past, and have thought a few times about an orion-esk project, but the mechanics are far beyond my abilities. A 1-off blast is doable; a chain becomes quite the engineering feat.

It would be very cool is someone did pull it off...

Bryan

[Will]

Since this is my first ever crack at anything like this I have decided to do something a bit simpler and 'only' try for a 3 stage Saturn V for the project and perhaps move onto more challenging stuff later.
How many motors should I have in each stage? Should I go for the true to life 5-5-1 or something more practical?
With the above question in mind, what type of motor for each stage should I use? It will probably wind up about 1:72 scale (about 5 feet) tall and the ceiling on the launch site is 10,000ft.
What should the main body be made of? The going materials seem to be balsa or paper. I have access to some tools so it is not completely impractical to build it all myself.
I wold quite like to have a LET jettison, perhaps taking the CSM with it but can't think of a way to do this without setting the CSM on fire.
Is staging done in a similar manner to the chute deployment on single stage rockets? i.e. the motor pushes backwards briefly and pushes the chute (or in this case upper stage) away.

I will be crediting this site in the bibliography!

Thanks,
Will

[Urwumpe]

That is too complex for your resources... remember, that you are diving deep into the realm of engineering or missing hands there. By what you post here, I am pretty sure, you are not really adapt in engineering and have a engineering student team ready.

Everything past 2 stages is far out of you, including booster stages.

The old R-7 rocket that launched sputnik could for example work as model, adding another stage would make you quickly hate it.