Super-ARLISS

Super-ARLISS - (2007-2008)
This is a two-stage rocket, where the sustainer stage can be used a standard ARLISS rocket to deploy university student payloads at an altitude of 10,000 ft. When launched as a two-stage rocket, its goal is to deploy university student payloads at an altitude of 30,000 ft. This is a joint design project with Grant Saviers. We hope it will enable a 30,000 ft. ARLISS altitude bracket by significantly reducing the cost for both the students and fliers.

The ARLISS rocket program (www.arliss.org) is widely supported by both universities and rocketeers. Ten universities from around the world and over twenty rocketeers participated in the 2007 ARLISS event. The university teams provide the payloads/satellites to be deployed and the rocketeers provide rockets that are built to the ARLISS specification to deploy these payloads at the 10,000 ft. target altitude. The cost to the students is the cost of their payload device plus about $300 for propellant. It costs the rocketeer about $1500 to build a rocket to the ARLISS-M specification.

Being able to deploy student payloads at 30,000 ft. AGL (34,000 ft. above sea level when launched from the Black Rock, Nevada launch site) would allow student payloads to explore the boundary between Earth's Troposphere and Stratosphere. At that altitude, the air pressure is only 26% of normal and the temperature is about 100 degrees F colder than at ground level. However, the cost of powering a single stage rocket to this altitude is 6-times higher than a standard ARLISS flight and such a rocket would be an even bigger investment for rocketeers.

The goal for the Super-ARLISS project is to design and build a rocket that could be used for both the existing ARLISS program (10,000 ft. deployment and meet the ARLISS-M specification) and for a potential future ARLISS 30,000 ft bracket. By using a rocket of this design:

• The incremental cost to ARLISS rocketeers to support a 30,000 ft. bracket would be much reduced.
• The standard ARLISS motor reload would be used to deploy student payloads at 10,000 ft.
• The cost of deploying student payloads at 30,000 ft. would be only 3 times the cost of the 10,000 ft.

This is a two-phase project. The first phase (completed in 2007) was to design the sustainer stage of the rocket. The sustainer stage was used successfully by itself for standard ARLISS flights during the 2007 ARLISS event. It also served as a Level 3 certification project.

We are now in the second phase of the project. We are building the rocket's the booster stage. We also need to reconfigure the sustainer stage for two-stage flight. For standard ARLISS flights, the rocket separates into three independent sections. Each section is brought to ground by its own parachute. While this is tolerable for a 10,000 ft. flight, recovering three sections that deploy their main parachutes at 30,000 ft. is a serious problem. We decided to tether the sustainer stage sections together and bring it down using a dual deployment strategy. A set of drogue parachutes will deployed at apogee and the single main parachute will be deployed as the rocket descends below 1000 ft.

The sub-projects of phase 2 are:

• Development and testing of the main parachute release device. This device is required because we need to deploy all the parachutes from one parachute compartment and the main parachute must be retained in the compartment while the drogues are being deployed. More information on this project is available by clicking on the above link. Status: complete.
• High power battery characterization and selection. It is our desire to make a days worth of flights on the same battery pack without replacement/recharging. We also needed to supply the main parachute release device with its higher than normal power requirement. Status: Complete.
• Igniter characterization. We need a way to ignite the sustainer motor while it was airborne. The ignition method has to be responsive and reliable. Status: On-going.
• Drogue parachute configuration testing. The tethering together of the sustainer sections results in increased possibility of entanglement and collisions between airframe sections. We especially need to ensure that the student payload is deployed without it colliding or entangling with sustainer sections. We believe that the configuration of drogue parachutes that we will use should prevent such occupancies.

Updates:

5-17-08 Flight tested the main parachute release device.
3-20-08 Completed the high power battery characterizations.
9-18-07 Phase 1 complete! Updated flight status, added pictures to gallery, short fin drawing, and Flight Results section.
9-09-07 Updated the design spec document and added
9-04-07 Added RockSim and stability calculation worksheet
8-30-07 New sustainer avionics schematic shows new LED circuits, BeeLine GPS, and RF caps.
8-30-07 Added avionics bay pressure equalization port calculations worksheet.

Specifications:

Diameter: 6"
Length: Sustainer 100", Booster 69.825"
ARLISS Mass: 19.5 Kg (43 lbs.) including M1419 motor, but no payload.
Two-stage Mass: 30 Kg (66 lbs.) without motors.
Status: The sustainer stage was flown multiple times in its ARLISS configuration at the AEROPAC ARLISS event at Black Rock, Nevada, Sept. 12-14, 2007. Both Grant's and Bob's rockets flew well and earned them Level 3 Certifications.
2-stage launch planned for July 18th Mavericks event.

Design Specification (Ver. 1.1) - Level 3 project specification (not updated with latest 2-stage mods.)

Detailed Drawings:

Pre-Flight Checklist (tbd)

Flight Results:

From ARLISS/XPRS 2007:

1. Even though we used Aluminum in most bulkheads, centering rings, fin frame, and fins; this design was lighter than most ARLISS designs.
2. All flights were straight up with no wobble or wind cocking. The precise alignment of the fins achieved by the CNC machining and the rigidity of the aluminum fin frame is credited.
3. We flew the combined "Level 3 Certification" and "new ARLISS rocket certification" flight without a student payload. Without the payload, the rocket was stable by about .75 diameters, according to the worst case RockSim calculation method (Barrowman). So we decided to attach about 3.5 lbs of weights to the nosecone internal bulkhead. After flight examination of both rockets showed signs of stress on the nosecone collar. It was probably caused by the high inertia of the weighted nosecone during payload carrier ejection. The weights were removed for subsequent flights and no additional stress signs were found. Just to be safe, we plan to reinforce the nosecone collar before the next launch event.
   Bob's MC2 Flight Profile
   Grant's MC2 Flight Profile
4. The redundant avionics succeeded in deploying the parachutes and payload carrier on time, but Bob was unable to upload the G-Wiz MC2 flight profile on his second flight. The altitude at apogee reports from the computers varied wildly. The Bob's first flight, the MC2 reported an integrated apogee at 11,553 ft and a barometric apogee of 9,407 ft. While the LCX beeped out an apogee of 13200 ft. There is a known bug in the MC2 & LCX altitude tables and the firmware for these computers need to be upgraded for more reliable altitude calculations.
5. In general we found that it took too long for us to "turn-around" the rocket (cleaning after a flight and preparing for the next flight). We plan to make several modifications to help turn-around. Initial thoughts are...
• Be able to turn on/off the GPS transmitter without removing the avionics bay from the rocket.
• Be able to recharge or replace the avionics logic batteries without having to remove the bulkheads from the avionics bay.
• Have a motor/CD3 cleaning station setup at or near our camp.
• Bring strap wrenches to tighten/loosen motor closures.
• Load disposable CD3 match holders with black powder the night before the launch.

Gallery:

Making the Fin Frames

We are going to need the big lathe.	Fixture to round the frame bars. Bars were bolted to this fixture and turned in the lathe to round the surface to fit the body tube ID.	Fixture with bars mounted for rounding.
Bob and Grant monitoring the rounding operation on the lathe.	Finished fin frame bars.	From right to left, 1) Fixture for setting fin hole angle. 2) Drill guide with a bar mounted. 3) A bar ready for rounding. 4) Finished bar with fin mounted.
Frame Rings The top & bottom rings were turned on the lathe, then lightened on the CNC milling machine. Here the frame bar mounting holes are being tapped.	All the Parts Ready to Assemble Bars and Rings all cut and tapped.	One Fully Assembled The frame on the right has been trial assembled. The rings still need to be lightened.
Grant testing fit and clearance.	Checking the fin mounting holes.	Checking the fit inside the body tube.
Finished top centering ring and fin frame

Cutting fiberglass tubes.

We decided to have the body tubes shipped uncut from PML.	Couplers and payload carrier components	Grant making brackets for the cutting table
The tube cutting table. The original design for this table was borrowed from John Coker. We improved upon it by adding a single point tube fence to keep the distance to the saw blade constant during the cut.	Grant is measuring tube wall thickness. We found that the wall thickness was reduced near the ends of the tube. We cut about 6" off the ends to get to the specified .080" thickness.	The tube cutting table was a very good investment. All tube cuts were precise and were able to be performed quickly. We made single point fence adapters for body tubes, fiberglass couplers, phenolic carriers, and a tube extender to cut rings from small pieces,

Other pictures

	The jig used to make payload carrier dividers. Our payload carriers have a removable divider to convert from "open class" to triple "soda can satellite" operation.
	Photo of used "disposable CD3 e-match holders" after parachute and payload carrier ejection testing. They are made of Delron and permit us to glue e-matches into the holder before we depart for a launch event.

Flight pictures

	Bob posing with his Super-ARLISS sustainer stage (top). Grant posing with his Super-ARLISS sustainer stage (bottom). Grant's is named Roy G Biv to match his color scheme. Except for the color schemes, the rockets are the same. They both flew at the 2007 ARLISS event. For more flight pictures see ARLISS/XPRS 2007.