2018 Spaceport America Cup

The 2018 Spaceport America Cup took place this past week, and it was even better than last year. Not only did our team at OSU perform well, but there were even more projects outside of the realm of competition flying throughout the week.

Because I didn’t wish to miss an entire week of work (in May I wasn’t even sure if I could be approved for an entire week off), I arrived on the third day, the first day of launches. Those first two days included the Poster Session where our team displayed a 36x48” poster of our project, our rocket, and we were one of 24 teams selected to give a presentation over our airbrake development, thank you Andrew Walsh for presenting. The second day was getting situated at base camp and the hardware was judged then as well. Last year, these days were the most exhausting, but also particularly exciting because 1500 students are preparing their rockets for flight. 

Our team at the Poster Session

Preparing for launch on Day 2

This year was unique because launches started the second day of the competition, rather than the third. ESRA (the administering organization) observed the bottleneck in launches towards the end last year, so this was their solution, and it appeared to work quite well.   

Anyway, I left after work Wednesday, and my friend and fellow intern, Bailey, gave me a lift to the airport. I flew through DFW, and after a lightning delay, arrived in Albuquerque at 00:30. Another member of our team, Hunter, also flew in that same time, so Sam, Jordan, and Garrett picked us up. Unfortunately, it was a 2-hour drive to the hotel in Truth or Consequences, so we got in at 2:45. I showered and took a 30-minute nap before waking up again because our team lead wanted to leave town for the Spaceport America at 4:00.

That certainly wasn’t much of a night’s sleep, and the rest of the morning didn’t improve much. Our team leads were unreasonably optimistic that we’d launch at 6:00 (hence the 4:00 start), so I was disgruntled because I was felt strongly that we wouldn’t launch until the afternoon anyway. To top that off, our team lead didn’t pack the main parachute, and no one else thought to check that before leaving Stillwater 3 days earlier. The parachute he did bring had a rated descent capacity of 35 pounds. Our rocket would weigh 60 pounds on the way down. He went on to buy a parachute out of pocket from a vendor on site, so at least that was one issue alleviated.

Because we arrived at the Spaceport in darkness, I watched the sun rise of the mountains. On the other side of those very mountains is where the US space program started all those years ago at White Sands Missile Range. Pretty cool feeling.

The rest of the morning included flight preparations. By the late morning when we could finally load the rail with our rocket, the 3D-printed rail buttons snapped off (the plastic itself broke). Fortunately, Jordan had made friends with students from the University of Victoria, and they gave us their extra set of rail buttons to use. We drilled them in place, secured the hole with epoxy, and we were good to go. The rocket contained an airbrake unit (likely wouldn’t engage because the rocket was heavier than originally designed) and our payload consisted of 5 small cameras equally space around the rocket airframe to record video and later be meshed into a 360-degree video file. 

Sam and me with Results May Vary

Following further delays with the hybrid rockets, Results May Vary lifted off at 14:30. It was 72 pounds on the pad, 12.5’ tall, 6” in diameter, and took off beautifully. Roaring under the burn of our programs 100^th motor ever fired, the Aerotech M1939W (technically a 1% N motor, costing $750), got us through the up part beautifully, and our drogue parachute deployed successfully. This was already a monumental step compared to last year when we made it less than 1000 feet into the air. We later found out it reached just over 8700 feet, but the main parachute was improperly folded and thus never fully deployed. Video of the launch is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxR_4R78acA&feature=youtu.be

Recovery a few hours later showed the rocket airframe, payload, and airbrake were mostly all destroyed because of the hard landing, but electronics, motor hardware, recovery, and the nosecone were all unharmed. We had our hardware examined by the recovery crew for points, and then we finally packed up and left. By the time we exited the Spaceport facilities, it was almost 21:00, clocking us in at 16 straight hours in the desert that day, with most of us having slept less than 2 hours. I was proud of our team for not letting the heat and exhaustion get to us and pulling off a great launch.

We ended the day with showers and a 23:30 team dinner at Denny’s. Throughout the day, some other notable launches took place. University of Michigan and Colorado State University pulled off the first successful flights and recovery of a liquid biprop rocket burning ethanol and nitrous oxide. BYU attempted a 100k flight, but the fins sheared off as it was going Mach 3, we later found out. I like that this competition is growing into a week of extreme rocketry with more and more demonstration flights beyond the scope of the competition. I hope the Spaceport itself can see more flights like that during the year also.

The remainder of the competition included watching more flights, doing pore-cleansing facemasks as a team, going swimming in the hotel’s pool, stargazing, and watching Incredibles 2. The awards ceremony was a good way to cap it off (congrats to McGill on winning it all), and we returned to our homes the next day. 

It was a remarkable week, and I think the biggest takeaway is the participation and enthusiasm from our younger team members. They will be the ones carrying the team on for the coming years, and now that they know what to expect and how to improve, I think the team is in very good hands. I look forward to participating as a grad student, and you know I will be at every launch. I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last two years, and I hope this is only the beginning of a future where rockets are abundant at Oklahoma State University.