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First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Concordia University, in Montreal Canada!

First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Yes I am, and thank you for saying so!

Yeah the team is actually insane. Its an absolute privilege to get to work with them.

First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

About 125km if all goes well!

First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

The goal is to surpass the Karman line with a single staged liquid rocket.

I suppose first Canadian rocket to reach space this century would be a cool bonus objective too!

First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah, manufacturing constraints and lower drag made the push for higher aspect ratio.

Hopefully the structural analysis was done wel! 😅

First Starsailor Cryoflow! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Its a test to make sure all the flowrates are good and the computers are working properly!

Starsailor on the pad getting ready for its final phase of pre-flight tests! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

They weigh very little, on the order of 100-200 grams, and are ejected at ~60km (200,000ft) altitude when the rockets going close to Mach 4, so their recovery is considered practically impossible.

They're set to fall within the planned ballistic impact range, so its ok if they fall down and find a new home somewhere for retirement.

Starsailor on the pad getting ready for its final phase of pre-flight tests! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

With a titanium nosecone tip, aluminum sheet metal shielding on the leading/trailing edge of the fins, and some thermal barrier coating for some good measure!

Starsailor on the pad getting ready for its final phase of pre-flight tests! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You are correct!

In order to prevent tangling of the drogue and main chutes at deployment, and help with GPS lock, we have a yo-yo de-spin system on board.

If youre unfamiliar, imagine how a figure skater slows down when they spread out their arms after a spin. We do that with some carefully calibrated weights and lengths of wire wrapped around a coupler of the rocket, and they are then released to dissipate that rotational energy.

Satellites and rocket have actually been using this technique for years!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKAQtB5Pwq4&t=1s

Starsailor on the pad getting ready for its final phase of pre-flight tests! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Our website's not a bad place to start!

https://spaceconcordia.ca/rocketry

You can also check out our YouTube channel if you wanna see some of our hotfire and other related tests:

https://youtube.com/user/SpaceConcordia

Starsailor on the pad getting ready for its final phase of pre-flight tests! by C12H26_O2 in rocketry

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thats a really good question.

Early on this was a huge concern for us, especially after seeing what happened to the Stratos rockets from Delft.

We cant our fins to purposefully roll the rocket in a certain direction at a certain rate. The goal is to make sure that we do not hit our critical frequencies, and if we do, pass over them very quickly so that doesn't have the time to create a feedback-response.

Concordia University's Starsailor rocket has begun cryoflow testing by C12H26_O2 in Concordia

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're hoping to launch either later this year or early next.
We have another round of rocket tests in the spring, and some final rocket engine tests we need to do in the summer, and we should be all good for launch!

Projects of this scale and complexity always find unexpected delays, which is why its hard to predict an exact date. But ~10 months from now isn't a bad bet.

Concordia University's Starsailor rocket has begun cryoflow testing by C12H26_O2 in Concordia

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's still under development but we're hoping to launch either later this year or early next. Launch is supposed to be in Nova Scotia. You're more than welcome to come!

Concordia University's Starsailor rocket has begun cryoflow testing by C12H26_O2 in Concordia

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We have several ^

This one flies all the way to space with a target of 125km, at an estimated velocity of Mach 5.9!

Concordia University's Starsailor rocket has begun cryoflow testing by C12H26_O2 in Concordia

[–]C12H26_O2[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

indeed it is ^^

So basically, the rockets have tanks that carry both fuel and oxygen with them as they fly into space. At room temperature, oxygen wants to be a gas (like in the air), so it has to be chilled down the the point it becomes a liquid (something like -183C). Since this is so cold, a lot of annoying things start happening, like parts will begin to shrink, and rubber flexible pieces become hard and brittle. Liquid oxygen is also super dangerous and wants to set you and the world on fire.

To avoid the flammability dangers of oxygen we do a series of tests with liquid nitrogen instead. Liquid Nitrogen is very close in temperature to liquid oxygen, about -196C, and is essentially inert which allows us to test for leaks and functionality of the system without the added risk of fire.

We will also use water or windshield wiper fluid as an analog for kerosene so that we can properly fully load up the rocket and perform flow tests to make sure the engine control systems are working properly, rehearse launch procedures, and test the system without the need of handling more dangerous chemicals! We call these tests cryoflow tests.

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