Spaceport America Cup 2023
The Spaceport America Cup is the world’s largest student rocketry competition. Teams of students from across the globe spend the academic year designing, building, and testing a rocket to fly to an altitude of 10, 000ft or 30, 000ft. After a year of work, the rockets are launched at the competition itself in New Mexico, USA, in June. The competition is run by Spaceport America, the world’s first commercial spaceport, in collaboration with the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) who judge the competition.
Last year StrathAIS entered a team into this competition to design, build and launch a rocket to 10, 000ft. It was the first time StrathAIS attempted anything rocketry related, and after a lot of work we managed to successfully launch our single stage rocket in New Mexico!
This year the team are building a new rocket to go to 10, 0000ft, with the aim of improving upon last year’s design and adding a functional payload to the rocket!
The structure for this year’s team is also changing with four core sub-teams and two extra sub-teams if members are interested.
Extra Sub-Teams
· 30K Concept team – The SAC has two flight categories, 10, 000ft and 30, 000ft. This team would research and create an initial design for a rocket to go to 30, 000ft, that can be used by the team in future years of the competition.
· STEM Outreach – Responsible for organising and running outreach events at schools, focused on aerospace.
Core Subsystems
Payload
Responsible for designing, building, and testing the functional payload.
Electronics
The electronics sub-system is responsible for measuring, storing and acting upon on-board flight data, including the altitude, speed and GPS coordinates of our rocket - as well as transmitting this data wirelessly to a ground control station. The GPS data sent to the ground control station will help expedite our rocket recovery after launch, and our altitude data will be interpreted and logged by the on-board flight computer, and will be used to deploy our parachutes and help determine how close we get to our 10,000ft apogee target.
Stability & Control,
Recovery
The S&C and Recovery sub-team are responsible for the overall aerodynamic stability of the rocket while also accounting for both the drogue and main parachute deployment. This team uses both simulations and manual calculations to determine critical measurements during flight. This includes max velocity, max altitude and the centre of gravity along with the centre of pressure over the full flight, from launch to land. The parachute selection is critical and all possibilities are to be analysed through simulations and drag calculations. The correct chute, ejected at the correct altitude, will allow the rocket to descend at a steady rate without any major faults when encountering the ground.
Airframe and Structures
The aero-structures sub-team are responsible for the design and manufacture of the nose, airframe, flight surfaces and internal components. Collaboratively, we ensure that each of the listed components of the rocket are fit for purpose under normal operational conditions and safe even if conditions exceed that of the original design. Using computer aided design (CAD) software such as SOLIDWORKS we create 3D-interactive part and assemblies that undergo Finite Element Analysis (FEA) using software like ANSYS to simulate the real-world forces, vibrations, and variety of other effects. Similarly, we also use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programs, e.g., STAR-CCM+, to assess the aerodynamic performance of the design in the operational environment.