Just throwing some numbers out there.
Now that I’m no longer working on a big rocket with the university, I want to do something small on my own. I was going to just build a model rocket but I quickly realised that is too easy. I don’t mind that they’re small, but the materials and techniques are too simple. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a lot of fun! But I’ve been working with rockets for too many years to get much out of them any more.
Instead I feel like building a rocket that will be very hard to make (difficulty is a feature!) and go a little higher than the usual Estes started kit. But I still want to stay out of High Power, so use a motor with less than H impulse.
Goals
Fly on an ‘F’ or ‘G’ reloadable, composite motor.
Use interesting materials like composites.
Minimal design. The case shouldn’t have extraneous inner motor mounts, fin tabs, and the like. Pure motor and skin. That means minimum diameter.
Flight Computer in the nosecone. Hopefully something home-made. This will certainly take longer than building the hardware. Maybe start with
Open Source. Publish everything here with open tools (KiCAD, FreeCAD, OpenRocket, etc.).
https://github.com/natronics/24mm-rocket
Early Numbers
Throwing just the minimum (nose, flight computer, parachute, body, fins, motor) I get a ~28 mm wide rocket with very small fins about a half meter long and weighing about 300 grams. Flying on the biggest Mid Power motor (no certs!) sims to … over 2000 meters!! That’s pretty crazy, but isn’t any more than record flights for the G motor class. By the time final weights are added I suspect that number will come down significantly.
TODO: Design Problems
- Material availability. Where to get composites?
- Separation mechanism. What am I going to do for this? It’s not off the shelf.
- Flight computer?
- Sizing and making parachutes. Recovery system in general is the hardest part of the rocket.
- Launch tower? I’m not using rail buttons, so no rails.
- Where to launch?