CU Spaceflight

Aquila fin progress: aluminium fins, ready for CFRP layup #rocket #space #engineering #student #rocketry #spaceflight

All of the parts of White Dwarf that have already been manufactured

White Dwarf’s injector, manufactured by Hubs, has undergone some final adjustments, and is now ready for assembly. Once the discharge chamber construction and lines cleaning is complete, we will be able to begin our Cold Flow testing, ahead of the first firings of White Dwarf.

We spoke to one of our new co-presidents Barty about his experience at CUSF - go check it out linkedin.com/posts/cuspacef…

Aquila - the second stage of our spaceshot attempt Griffin - is taking shape. Below are parts of the fin can, a bulkhead, and part of the assembled body

The White Dwarf team have put together a partial assembly of the cold-flow-testing apparatus. A cold-flow test is a test where water or fuel is injected into a mockup engine but not burnt, so that we can analyse the atomisation characteristics of the injector and its flowrates.

CUSF have had a hugely exciting 6 months finally getting back to in person meetings and manufacture. We welcomed a new committee at the AGM last week and are very excited for what’s to come!

@Erdayastronaut @CopSub Happy to share some of our results for both self-pressurising and COPV-pressurised vehicles! There's some fun and interesting subtleties that pop out of the analysis, it's definitely an interesting one. This is one particular performance map for our Griffin spaceshot rocket

@CopSub I think I'm looking specifically for the PV/W chart of any given configuration. So I'm just trying to show that in a pressure fed system, there's a point where increasing pressure in the tank doesn't actually add overall performance to a rocket because of diminishing returns

Anyone out there have a trade off chart between tank pressure and tank weight for COPVs? Maybe someone at @CopSub has dealt with this? I was making an estimate but I fear I can't just totally wing it like I had planned haha

Our Facebook is back up and running under our new committee after a long radio silence. Keep up to date with current projects and society events🚀 facebook.com/cuspaceflight/

Take a look at our current projects! New blog post on our website🚀 cusf.co.uk/2021/04/what-h…

We've just launched a new website! Find our latest update here: cusf.co.uk/2020/06/martle…

Inspired by our student society @cuspaceflight - the Craig family have used the resources on the CUSF website to launch their own high altitude balloon with permission from the Civil Aviation Authority and take some video footage cuspaceflight.com/martlet-1 youtu.be/GLl8IimP9xc

Well done guys!

Thanks @Skyrora_Ltd for hosting what was a really enjoyable evening!

CUSF have successfully completed the first static firing of our own hybrid rocket engine. A measured impulse of 53,855 Newton seconds means its the largest Nitrous Hybrid rocket ever fired in the UK. youtu.be/RYhfGLZWWco

With the firing of our new hybrid rocket engine only weeks away, the controlling electronics are starting to take shape!

Some photos of our latest project - a GPS disciplined oscillator for use with our radio systems. Massive thanks to @CamCircPCB for yet more great quality PCBs.

Yesterdays successful HAB launch to send three teddy bears into space for a local primary school. Thanks to @boconline for suppliying the helium for the launch!

@adacoghen leading to this eventual "successful recovery" (we were still getting GPS & telem from dart avionics)

@adacoghen Sadly the explosion broke the power switch on the lower avionics, so the dart separation mech never fired, and the whole lot stuck together