Student-run program sends rocket club higher
The High Altitude Rocketry Program aims to send its rocket to the stratosphere
SAN JOSE >> Finals may be over, but a couple dozen undergraduate students continue to head to a quiet San José State University campus two evenings a week. They file into an engineering classroom with model airplanes suspended overhead and an airplane engine off to one side. They sit in groups at round tables and whip out their laptops.
Their mission? To design a rocket that will reach an altitude of 100,000 feet. That’s 3 to 4 times higher than the cruising altitude of an airplane.
“At that altitude, the sky above you is black, because you are looking into space,” said Alexis Thoeny, an aerospace engineering student. “There’s virtually nothing above you.”
Earlier this year, Thoeny launched a new program at SJSU under its Rocket Club: the High Altitude Rocketry Program. The HARP team aims to send its rocket to the stratosphere from a desert launch site in Black Rock, Nevada, between Sept. 21-23. Now, all hands are on deck for a Tuesday deadline to ensure they will be prepared
to submit a formal launch request to the Federal Aviation Administration 90 days in advance.
Thoeny conservatively estimates that the team’s two-stage rocket will successfully launch, reach or exceed its target altitude, and be recovered at 80 to 85 percent. If HARP does succeed, then as “a state school in our first semester of a project like this,” he said, beating the university record for altitude
“would be out of the world, both literally and figuratively.”
Similar undergraduate student-run programs at other universities are often well-funded and have years of experience. In March 2017, the group at the University of Southern California reached an altitude of 144,000 feet — the highest for a vehicle designed and manufactured by students.
For HARP’s first year, Thoeny is focused on building the foundation. He initially asked friends and classmates to join, and word of mouth helped bring more to the team. Some team members
have experience with hobby rockets, but others do not.
Before this project, students in Rocket Club would just build and launch rockets, according to Denise Lainez, president of the club.
“But with (HARP), we’re trying to apply all the engineering that we’ve learned and all the stuff we’ve learned in our classes,” said Lainez, “and actually see what happens when we use it.”
The team split into five subgroups to tackle the project, four of which focus on the rocket’s design. The structures group, on which Lainez is a member, runs simulations to see how the rocket components can handle loads. This group has to make sure the fins don’t break off during flight.
The aerodynamics team tests how the rocket will perform at high speeds. They predict that the upper stage of the rocket will reach 3.5 Mach, a speed that is 3.5 times the speed of sound. So they are optimizing different parts of the rocket, such as the nose cone, fins, and tail, to reduce the overall drag.
The avionics group focuses on the “brains” or all of the electronics on the rocket. Acknowledging that the most important subgroup might be debatable, member Jonathan Carpio said, “I think every other system is critical, but I would say that if the avionics system fails, the whole rocket fails.”
The recovery subgroup works on how the parachutes will deploy and the rocket can be recovered. The rocket will spend only about two minutes to reach its peak altitude, but it will take about 15 minutes to return to Earth.
The final subgroup handles the logistics of the program. The HARP crowdfunding site exceeded its initial goals and ended with $8,500. Now the business team continues to connect with more sponsors.
Thoeny has over 11 years of experience with hobby rockets. Because he’s well aware of what the common problems are in that industry, he’s helping the subgroups concentrate on those specific issues, like making sure the fins don’t break off or the nose cone doesn’t implode.
He also wants to include some “cool stuff” in the rocket. One definite element is a high definition camera that will record the flight, possibly capturing the curvature of the Earth. In development is a small window pane that would reveal a mini Tesla Roadster and Lego figurine, as a nod to SpaceX’s Starman.
Otherwise, the HARP team is sticking with a simple design and goal for its first season. But Thoeny said he’s excited that the student-run program has the freedom to choose its goals for the future. HARP could attend competitions, add challenges like higher payloads or active stabilization, or even team up with another campus group to deploy a cube satellite at altitude.
But for now, the team members are gaining practical experience before they graduate.
“This is pretty close to real-world engineering,” explained Carpio. “We have to collaborate with a team and then you have to work with people from a completely different system and work things out.”
Thoeny said this year’s rocket, as it is assembled over the coming months, will be “beautiful” internally and externally. “Even if we aren’t successful on the launch,” he said, “it’s going to be a great experience either way.”