Florida Tech Panther Rocketry

Title, Date, Location: 

Recovery Subsystem Lead

Aug. 2022 - May 2023

Melbourne, FL

Summary and Background:

During my time on the Florida Tech Rocketry Team, we chose to compete in the 2023 Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) design competition. The purpose of this competition was to get your rocket as close to its target altitude as possible, which for us was a target altitude of 10,000 feet. 

Our rocket had two stages of recovery. One was a drogue parachute (that deploys at apogee), the other was a main parachute that deploys at 1500 feet. Each parachute was packed into the rocket using a parachute bag to ensure smooth deployment. The rocket was constructed in three major parts, and each part was held together using shear pins. When a parachute needs to be deployed in flight, an ejection charge activates, which breaks the shear pins to expose the packed parachute for deployment. 

Responsibilities:

On this team, I was the recovery subsystem lead, which means I was responsible for leading the team and ensuring the rocket's recovery system would function as intended on launch day.

During my time as the subsystem lead, we developed a reliable and easily manufacturable ejection charge to ensure smooth parachute deployment during flight, as well as sizing and acquiring shock chords. We also went through many phases of testing and wrote extensive procedures, such as:

• Ejection Charge Manufacturing and Placement

• Parachute packing

• System assembly

Results:

Although our ground testing was successful, unfortunately, during my time as the lead, our rocket did not reach completion in time for the competition delivery date. That being said, I have no doubt that our work will be (or maybe already was) beneficial to future teams. Best of luck to them! Below are a few interesting pictures from our deployment charge testing.