USU Rocket Team Takes Design Award, Awaits Word on 'Overall'

Powering through enormous amounts of “blood, sweat, tears and pizza,” Utah State University’s Chimaera Rocket Team displayed its expertise once again, winning “Best Vehicle Design” at the NASA Student Rocket Launch competition held April 17. The students represented USU’s College of Engineering.

The team is now looking to secure its third “overall” win in four years. The overall winner will be announced by NASA in May. The USU team took first place overall in 2008 and 2009.

The competition, sponsored by Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and hosted by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, saw more than 500 students from middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities across the country come together under the skies of northern Alabama and compete in the Student Launch Initiative. The challenge: to design, build and a launch a reusable rocket carrying a scientific payload to exactly one mile in altitude.

“The launch competition went well,” said Stephen Whitmore, associate professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and USU Rocket Team advisor. “We once again won ‘best vehicle design’ for the third time in three years and had a good launch and recovery. We think we are well positioned for a ‘threepeat’ if we a get a good final report.”

The rocket, named “the Javelin” in continuing USU’s long-standing tradition of naming their rockets after fish, carried a special payload called “C-BAS” the “cold gas augmentation system.” It shot cold gas out the back, allowing for the Rocket Team to hone in on its mile target altitude. They came within 200 feet, being 3rd closest to the mark in reaching an apogee altitude of 5,416 feet.

“It appears that we over predicted the ‘hot day’ density effects on the resistance to the rocket,” Whitmore said. “We had no way to test in this warm of conditions on our full-scale vehicle, and the actual flight reduced drag was the likely culprit for missing high on the target.”

After all of the countless hours in the shop and early mornings working on reports, the project was not an easy endeavor.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” said Richard Perkins, USU Rocket Team member and senior in mechanical engineering. “Dr. Whitmore walked up to class and told us how awesome rockets were and that it would be the opportunity of a lifetime. As an afterthought he said it would be a lot of work and there would be a lot of pizza. He was pretty much right.”

Although USU Chimaera Rocket Team found itself up against some top competition on launch day with schools including Purdue, MIT, University of Florida and University of Alabama (the returning champions), team members said the toughest opponent they found was with technology itself.

“The hardest thing for the team was our first launch,” Perkins said. “We finally had the rocket put together. It flew up to a mile so beautifully, but then failed to deploy a parachute. After a mile trek we were greeted with the shattered pieces of our rocket, just two weeks before the final review. In an incredible effort, we put the rocket back together in just a week. The competition actually had a lot of salvaged parts from the first rocket.”

The team is happy about the way the competition went.

“We put our heads together, built something and were overjoyed when everything seemed to be working correctly,” said Stewart Hansen, USU Rocket Team member and senior in electrical engineering. “The launch in Alabama was beautiful, it flew straight as an arrow, and came down as soft as a bird, well, a heavy bird.”

ATK Aerospace of Magna, Utah, is the main sponsor for the event, providing a $5,000 prize to the top team.

A video summary of USU’s launch effort and after-launch interview can be seen online.

Related links:

USU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department

USU College of Engineering

Contact: Stephen Whitmore, (435) 797-2951, stephen.whitmore@usu.edu

Writer: Rob Goates, (435) 797-1350, rsgoates@gmail.com