Viktor Fedun reports on success for SunrIde, a team of students from the University of Sheffield who designed and built a rocket

Birakasan, V.N.

Fedun, V.

Ioannou, K.

Kalra, A.

Lim, J.H.

Narayanankutty, G.

Rontogiannis, G.

Schiona, A.

Seniuc, I.-V.

Simpson, C.

Verth, G.

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Sheffield students win US rocket competition.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/149304/Version: Published VersionArticle:Seniuc, I.-V., Kalra, A., Lim, J.H. et al. (8 more authors) (2019) Sheffield students win US rocket competition. Astronomy & Geophysics, 60 (3). 3.36-3.37. ISSN 1366-8781 https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/atz149This article has been published in Astronomy and Geophysics © 2019 Oxford University Press (OUP). Published by OUP on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. SUNRIDEA&G • June 2019 • Vol. 60 • aandg.org 3.1Shefield University Nova Rocket Innovation Design Engineering (SunrIde) is a student-led engineering group focused on rocketry. In 2018, the University of Shefield team was the irst from the UK to take part in the Spaceport America Cup (SA Cup), the world’s largest annual student rocket competition. SunrIde launched and recovered a self-designed, payload-carrying rocket called Amy, which reached a measured altitude of 10 017 ft (~3053 m), winning the James Barrowman Award for Flight Dynamics for the most accurate altitude prediction, at 99.83%. SunrIde plans to return to the SA Cup in 2019, competing with their newer generation rocket, Helen, in the 30 000 ft category. SunrIde’s achievement in 2018 boosts the UK’s presence on the international high-power rocketry scene. It also sets an important precedent for UK students in STEM ields, encouraging them to develop their practical engineering skills beyond the academic framework.Project SunrIde began in October 2017, as part of the university’s Shefield Space Initiative. A group of students from several departments – mostly MSc students from the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (ACSE) – with the support of Viktor Fedun, senior lecturer in ACSE, started a collaboration with Charles Simpson from the UK Rocketry Association (UKRA). UKRA’s Team Project Support (TPS) scheme offers essential practical advice on projects that fall outside the traditional scope of the UKRA level 1–3 certiication training process.AmbitionThe SunrIde team wanted to research, design and build a payload-capable high-power reusable rocket that could compete in the SA Cup 2018 in the category “10 000 ft above ground level (AGL) apogee with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solid propulsion system”. According to the rules, the rocket had to reach the 10 000 ft (~3048 m) mark within the smallest margin possible, while carrying a 4 kg payload – either scientiic or non-functional.None of us had any rocketry experience to match the project speciication, so the prospect of building a high-power rocket from scratch proved daunting from a managerial and technical perspective. Nevertheless, within the academic year 2017–18, we undertook the relevant research into rocketry, secured funding, identiied primary parts and materials suppliers, established an eficient iterative design cycle adapted to the university’s manufacturing facilities and – eventually – overcame most of the unknowns that are an innate part of such a novel large-scale project. The team faced an additional set of legal constraints in order to test some of the rocket-speciic subsystems; the conventional certiication route in the UK for a vehicle of the proposed power turned out to be incompatible with the demands of the competition. On top of this, the availability of high-altitude launch sites was limited. However, the TPS scheme offered a viable and lawful solution: through UKRA we got access to sample motors and pyrotechnics for the recovery system, allowing some supervised tests. Building AmySunrIde named its rocket after Amy Johnson, the British aviator and University of Shefield alumna. Once complete, Amy (igures 1 and 2) was about 2.7 m high and weighed roughly 28 kg – including a 3.8 kg, three-unit CubeSat payload mostly made of concrete. The airframe consisted of pre-glassed phenolic tubing with an outside diameter of 158 mm, which accommodated a solid-propelled, reloadable Cesaroni P98-4G M3400-WT motor providing a total impulse of ~10 Ns. The nose cone was made of ibreglass in an ogive shape. We shaped the four clipped delta rear ins into a circular arc aerofoil and strengthened them by laminating a ibreglass cloth layer between 3 mm thick plywood sheets cut by laser. They were mounted them on a removable in can. But because we expected the rocket to reach the transonic light regime (Mach ~ 0.96), Sheield students win US rocket competitionViktor Fedun reports on success for SunrIde, a team of students from the University of Sheield who designed and built a rocket.1 Amy taking light. (V Fedun)SUNRIDE3.2 A&G • June 2019 • Vol. 60 • aandg.orgwe laminated an additional tip-to-tip ibreglass reinforcement layer over the ins to eliminate the risk of in lutter.The rocket had three sections. The lowest contained the motor and drogue parachute, with the main parachute in the upper section. The middle section held the payload and avionics. The parachutes were designed to allow them to fall without tangling and avoid damage to the airframe. The internal structure of the rocket was held in place by 1.8 cm thick, laser-cut plywood bulkheads, centring rings around the motor mount tube, and a custom-designed, CNC-machined aluminium motor retainer, all epoxied to the airframe.We used two single redundant PerfectFlite StratologgerCF altimeter boards for the dual-event parachute deployment and altitude logging. Once a deployment condition is met, the altimeter detonates a charge of 3–5 g of black powder, separating the adjacent rocket sections. This lets the parachute spread out of the airframe and inlate. To prevent premature ejections mid-light, both separation joints were also secured with four M3 nylon screws, which acted as shear pins during intentional deployment.We intended to use an Eggtimer TRS – a more advanced primary light computer with GPS/RF assisted recovery support – but it failed unexpectedly during the inal testing stages of the competition. We replaced it with a spare Strato Logger CF unit, and adapted the coniguration to it. Our inal avionics circuitry was awarded an “On The Spot Recognition” token by the SA Cup judging panel for its robust layout.Flight performanceThe rocket was launched on 22 June 2018 at 20:13:07 UTC from a dedicated vertical launch site near Spaceport America (32°56ʹ34.0ʺN 106°54ʹ54.0ʺW), at an air temperature of ~40 °C, relative humidity of ~6% and a gentle breeze. Safety reports from previous SA Cup launches had noted that some StratologgerCF boards had failed to initialize properly in hot weather; in order to lower the risk of the altimeter overheating and falsely triggering parachute release, we sprayed the airframe with relective white primer and transported it to the launch area under white cotton towels. The vehicle performed a nominal light, with the motor ignition and the recovery system both working as expected, an impressive achievement considering we had not been able to conduct either a test light or extensive ejection tests. Shortly after reaching ~3053 m (10 017 ft) AGL at apogee, the drogue parachute deployed, stabilizing the descent rate at 24.5 m s–1. Down at 457 m (1500 ft), the main parachute opened, allowing the rocket to touch down at a prudent 5.9 m s–1. It is worth noting that the nominal light success rate among all 99 inalist teams at SA Cup 2018 was only around 50%. While this demonstrates the inherent, frequent and dangerous system failures attached to high-power rocketry, it also highlights SunRIde’s robust approach.Our extensive light simulations showed that, at an estimated static stability margin of 2.2 calibres, the inal design of Amy was slightly “over-stable”, as per the SA Cup 2018 design guidelines. This made it susceptible to weathercocking – a tendency to turn into the wind – during ascent. We had relatively favourable light conditions, and our vehicle landed only 1.56 km away from the launch pad. We located it the next day and recovered it safely. Close inspection by competition oficials found that the vehicle had not sustained any critical damage and was ready to ly again.Amy overshot the 10 000 ft (3048 m) apogee target by just 17 ft (~5.18 m), representing 99.83% accuracy. This was the best result at the SA Cup 2018 for altitude prediction and won a technical achievement award: The James Barrowman Award for Flight Dynamics. The SunrIde team is also proud to have made contact with competition sponsors such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Virgin Galactic and more. This puts the University of Shefield – and the UK – on the world map of student-driven high-power rocket engineering. We hope that our success will inspire more UK university teams to follow.Future plansIn October 2018, SunrIde welcomed a new generation of talented students to build on our competition experience, increased media exposure and new funding. We are developing a rocket for the 30 000 ft COTS category of SA Cup 2019, named after Helen Sharman, Shefield University graduate and irst UK astronaut. Helen involves a major design overhaul and improved telemetry. Together with new industry partners, we are working on a taller, thinner, carbon-ibre airframe, a metal-tipped nose cone and metal ins to allow the rocket to handle the more powerful N-class engine. With Helen, SunrIde will also attempt to send its irst science payload to the upper atmosphere. ●AUTHORSIulius-Vladimir Seniuc, Ankita Kalra, Jae Hyun Lim, Andrea Schiona, Gopika Narayanankutty, Vishan Nair Birakasan, Georgios Rontogiannis, Konstantinos Ioannou, Gary Verth, Viktor Fedun, University of Sheield, UK; Charles Simpson, UKRA.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe SunrIde team would like to thank the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering and the School of Mathematics and Statistics (University of Sheield), UKRA, the iForge staf (UoS), the Alumni Foundation (UoS) and National Instruments UK for their valuable contributions, which hopefully represent the start of a last-ing future collaboration. Special thanks go to all ACSE and SoMaS UoS staf members, Rick Maschek (SA Cup 2018) as well as other competi-tion oicials and student teams for their generous help and guidance.MORE INFORMATIONSpaceport America Cup https://www.spaceportamericacup.comUK Rocketry Association http://www.ukra.org.uk2 The SunrIde team before lift-of. (Left to right): Viktor Fedun, Jae Hyun Lim, Andrea Schiona, Georgios Rontogiannis, Ankita Kalra, Iulius Seniuc, Vishan Nair, Gopika Narayanankutty. (V Fedun)“We plan to reach 30 000 ft with our ambitious new rocket Helen at SA Cup 2019”3 Amy’s light data, as logged by one of its on-board altimeters (22 June 2018, NM, operating temperature between 41.1° and 42.9°C).

Sheffield students win US rocket competition

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Sheffield students win US rocket competition

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