MISSION OVERVIEW

As USCRPL strives to improve from the success of Traveler IV, the team has come together with top-to-bottom updates across all flight systems. On this high performance 6-inch scale vehicle, all design improvements will have the opportunity to be tested and validated on a lower scale before moving into our next spaceshot vehicle. Key improvements on Fireball include updates to the fin leading edges, vehicle thermal protection system, recovery system, and avionics system.

FLIGHT VEHICLE

On April 1, 2023 Fireball was successfully launched from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, NM. According to the telemetry the vehicle had a nominal ascent, as well as a successful deployment of the recovery system. Unfortunately, due to a GPS error on the avionics unit the vehicle was not able to be located on the ground post-launch. Due to this the team was unable to recover the vehicle, and therefore we are unable to download the high-fidelity telemetry data from the avionics unit which means we are unable to accurately determine the apogee of the vehicle at this time. However, recovery efforts are still ongoing, and analysis is being performed on the information we have to determine an approximate apogee. Regardless of issues recovering the vehicle, Fireball achieved its goal of giving member the opportunity to test many new developments at a high-performance scale in order to move into our next spaceshot. With lots to improve on, the team is excited to move into the design for our next vehicle!

Thank you to Spaceport America for all the support.

STATIC FIRE

On Nov 13th 2022, Firebiter, an 6-inch diameter, 64-inch long P-class solid rocket motor, was successfully fired, becoming the team’s first successful static fire since Spring 2019. The motor delivered a total impulse of 15,674 lbf-s, producing a maximum thrust of 1632 lbs. Firebiter was fired in a carbon-epoxy motorcase with a carbon-phenolic nozzle, all of which were designed and fabricated by USC students. 

PROPELLANT CHARACTERIZATION

In the Fall of 2023, we travelled to the Mojave Test Area (MTA) to conduct a series of firings in order to characterize our propellant and therefore refine our simulations. Furthermore, this characterization would help us design our upcoming static fire motor, by doing a series of small scale firings we could gain better confidence in our propellant going into this large scale test.