ARES - Project Florence - 2024 image

ARES - Project Florence - 2024

Project Overview

I served as the Team Lead of this project from July 2023 - June 2024. Project Florence was team's entry into the Spaceport America Cup 30,000 ft category. The goal was to take on the lessons from previous year to develop a robust rocket that would survive the harsh launch conditions and be recoverable. The team overdelivered, achieving a successful flight and recovery, and getting within 0.6% of our target apogee of 30,000ft, resulting in us coming runners up in the competition.

Skills Used

Project Leadership Rocket Design Composite Manufacturing Control Systems Airbrakes Design Competition

ARES - Project Florence - 2024

Overview

I served as the Team Lead of this project from July 2023 - June 2024.

Project Florence was team’s entry into the Spaceport America Cup 30,000 ft category. The goal of the project was to take on the lessons from previous year to develop a robust rocket that would would survive the harsh launch conditions and be recoverable.

The team overdelivered on this goal, in that we not only had a successful flight and recovery, but we also managed to get within 0.6% of our target apogee of 30,000ft. This resulted in us coming runners up in the competition.

Air brakes

In order to hit our target apogee of exactly 30,000, the rocket is designed to deploy airbrakes to slow the rocket down using a closed loop control system. The ‘leaves’ slid on linear bearings and were actuated through a crank mechanism that used pins and bushings.

CAD assembly of the airbrakes mechanism

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Airbrakes working!

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Test Launch

Composite manufacturing

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