Rocket Final Design

Rocket Flight Simulation (OpenRocket V15.03)

Rocket Forebody
A hollow nose has been made from plastic material using
3D-printer. We preferred the Von Karman nose shape
which gives minimum aerodynamic drag in transonic
flight regime. The nose dimensions are 30cm length; and
11cm base diameter (rocket caliber).

Rocket Body
A hollow PVC cylindrical tube (COTS) with constant crosssectional area (Dout=11cm and Din=10.4cm) has been
used to form: (i) main parachute section (60cm); (ii)
aviation bay section (11cm); (iii) drogue parachute
section (25cm); and (iv) the rocket motor section (81cm).
Stabilization System (One Fin Set)
Four trapezoidal fin set has been designed to satisfy the
stability margin ranged from (12 caliber) during our
rocket flight regime. It has been implemented using laser
beam to keep fine surface finish and accurate
dimensions, which are 22cm root chord, 12cm tip chord,
8cm semi-span, and 3mm thickness. The fin set located
at 75mm from rocket base.

Rocket Motor System

In our project, a COTS Solid Rocket Motor has been
selected, which is a 75mm Cesaroni technology Inc.
motor (M1810RL) with 6128 N.s. total impulse. The rocket
motor is mounted inside the rocket body tube using a
90mm PVC hollow tube (Din=84mm) with two steel cap
ends (with 75mm inner diameter). A motor retainer has
been produced from two threaded steel parts which are
mounted together to keep the motor closure inplace.
Rocket Launcher
The rocket off-rod velocity was designed to be
approximately 31 m/s using the 1.5" guiderail with 18 ft
length provided by ESRA to assure it will follow the
predictable flight path independent of surface wind speed
and direction.
Recovery System
A parachute recovery system follow a dual-event
recovery operation has been used in our project,
including:
1)Initial Deployment Event, It has been designed to
initially deploy drogue parachute at the target apogee.
It has been made from circular cloth with (98cm) main
diameter to decent the rocket with velocity 23m/s. To
stabilize the parachute during decent, a vent has been
made with (9cm) diameter. It has 8 shroud lines with
(98cm) length.
2)Main Deployment Event, It has been designed to deploy
the main parachute at altitude less than 1500 ft. It has

been made from circular cloth with (3.25m) main

diameter and 25cm vent diameter to decent the rocket
with velocity 7m/s. It has 16 shroud lines with (3m)
length.
The parachute dimensions have been computed as,
D=

1
V

8.W
. .C D

Where, D is the parachute outer diameter [m]; V is the

required decent velocity [m/s]; Wfalling body weight
[N]; is the air density [Kg/m3]; and CD is the textile drag
coefficient.
Avionics Bay
Separation Mechanism
A chemical energy device, containing black powder
charge, has been used for both main and redundant duel
deployment systems. Black powder charge mass is
depending on the closed inner free volume V c in [cm2] of
the tube section to be separated, which can be computed
as;
mBP=4 104 . Pc .V c

Freq = . D2inner . Pc . g
4

Where,
and

Pc

m BP

is the black powder BP charge mass [gm];

is the internal pressure generated by BP ignition

[kg/cm2]; and

Freq

is the required separation force [N].

Payload
It has been designed to be replaceable with dummy mass
approximately 10.3 lb. It has been located between
drogue parachute section and the rocket motor section to
be easily mounted the rocket body (being weighed
completely independent of the rocket).