New $1 million prize for student rocket reaching 100 km.

Just saw this on Arocket:

[h=1]Base 11 Space Challenge[/h]Education, Non-Profit & Social Impact, Space, Technology
The Base 11 Space Challenge is a $1M+ prize for the first student-led team to design, build and launch a liquid-fueled rocket to space. Read Overview...
https://www.herox.com/spacechallenge/guidelines

That it has to be liquid-fueled represents a significant challenge. These are not nearly as well developed for students as are solid-fueled rockets.
Perhaps they could offer a smaller prize, say $100,000, for the first student team to send a solid-fueled rocket to 100km.

Bob Clark

Fantastic! I can't wait to see their design-build-launch documentation.

Although liquid has higher startup costs and learning curve than solid motors, actually pushing either technology to reach 100 kilometers will present roughly equivalent challenges in the long run.

Heck, in your own thread about Princeton, their "simple" solid rocket coned itself away. The motor is only one part of the complex system required.

Sincere good luck to any teams aiming to meet this challenge

MODS, please move this thread to the watering hole... this is nothing but a news feed from OP.

Thank you,

coned itself away lol? what?

saadzmirza said:

coned itself away lol? what?

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It’s aft end described a circle. Into oblivion. Or the playa.

There going to be a certain amount of poking fun at a huge group of engineering students who managed to pull this off. Gentle ribbing is how lessons are reinforced in the real world.

My comment was moreso meant to mean that I don't believe the vehicle coned, but it depends on the definition of coning. Coning usually takes place at high altitudes where aerodynamic forces can't maintain an attitude for a given roll rate, and the vehicle cones like a gyroscope.

We had some initial instability, but that is because the vehicle was at a up-to 16 degree angle of attack off the rail. We launched into very high winds. Seeing this video, the oscillation damped out after a few cycles, and the rest of the boost was straight.

saadzmirza said:

coned itself away lol? what?

Click to expand...

Initial speculations from 5 months ago. Your more recent information sheds some light on the flight problems which is helpful.

saadzmirza said:

We had some initial instability, but that is because the vehicle was at a up-to 16 degree angle of attack off the rail. We launched into very high winds. Seeing this video, the oscillation damped out after a few cycles, and the rest of the boost was straight.

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Were the very high winds within your simulations and go/no go wind speeds? Also, did you perform simulations with the 16 degree angle of attack?

Edward

Can I post this , Headline...
"Student Team Rocket Cones"

So back to the OP.
The registration deadline has passed how many signed up?

MClark said:

So back to the OP.
The registration deadline has passed how many signed up?

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On this page five teams are listed as “fully registered”:

https://www.herox.com/spacechallenge/community

But there are 57 other “teams” listed on that page. One these listed teams is Purdue University which has a pretty well developed on-going liquid fueled rocket student project, which leads me to believe these other “teams” are still in the running.

Bob Clark

AlphaHybrids said:

Were the very high winds within your simulations and go/no go wind speeds? Also, did you perform simulations with the 16 degree angle of attack?

Edward

Click to expand...

There were a lot of problems here:

1) Spaceport didn't offer a wind profiling method, so we had to use inaccurate NOAA HRRR simulations that drastically underestimated the wind field
2) We did not establish a launch commit criteria for adequete stability in terms of AoA induced by wind off the rail
3) The aerodynamics model in our trajectory model assumed a constant pitching moment slope
dCm/dAlpha (the value at 0 AoA) - basically the small angle approximation. Thus we did not have any indication the vehicle would be not very stable off the rail and failed to develop a launch commit criteria due to not fully realizing this oversight

These launches are a learning experience and I'm sure our organization will use the lessons learned next time.