High Power Rocketry
March 31, 2022
Back in college one of my extracurriculars was rocketry. You’d buy a kit, put it all together, drive out to the desert, launch it, and finally: recover it. For me, that last part was the toughest. Here’s an image of the area that I launched rockets in:
The geography was very homogenous, landmarks spaced far apart, easy to get lost in. My rocket didn’t have any tracking equipment besides the two eyes in my head and that wasn’t enough. I spent several hours out in this desert looking for my rocket and I could not find it. Next time will be different, I will make sure of that.
The Solution
Arduino powered Avionics!
It consists of:
- Stratologger for altitude measurement
- GPS for positional measurement
- Arduino for converting that GPS dat
- an HC12 for transmitting to the ground
- a 2 cell Li-ion battery pack
I don’t really have a plan as to when it will get launched.
Now I need to do the following before I launch it:
Spotweld the 2s Lithium-ion battery togetherCreate a new bracket to hold the battery in the telemetry bayAdd a screw switch for safety purposes (might have to make these myself)Possibly re orient the Telemetry antenna (the spring in the top photo)swap out the plastic M2 spacers for brass (better strength)hot glue the electronics together as a sort of poor man’s potting- Figure out how to use the stratologger to deploy parachutes
- make deployment charges for the stratologger to trigger
attach ferrules to all wires going into the stratologger’s screw terminals- attach launch lugs / tube
- sand down the leading and trailing edges of the fins
- paint the rocket and add decals
Once I arrive at the launch site I’ll need to do the following
- Charge the Battery up
- Fold and pack the chute(s)
- Load the “dog barf” shredded insulation
- load the powder charges and more dog barf
- activate the stratologger, confirm the deployment at peak altitude settings
- make sure telemetry is functioning
- launch
The arduino is running this code: