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McLean’s new Rocketry Club is racing to complete its first competition rocket, with test flights approaching and a March 31 deadline to submit qualifying data for the American Rocketry Challenge.
The 20-member team has spent Friday afternoons dividing up the painstaking construction work. Some students are securing the fins while others assemble the payload section, club president Eunice Sim said.
The challenge will narrow a field of 1,000 teams to 100 national qualifiers in May. The top 10 teams at nationals will earn invitations to the NASA student launch in Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
McLean hopes to reach nationals, but the first-year team has not yet conducted a test flight. Sim said those early launches will provide a clearer picture of its competitive prospects.
Sophomore Everett Munson created the rocket in OpenRocket software and refined it through six versions. His proposal was selected from designs submitted by five students.
Only one of Munson’s iterations satisfied the competition requirements while accounting for possible changes in altitude and the materials available to the club. The finished design is 92 inches long, with a constant body diameter of 2.2 inches to support aerodynamic performance.
Competition rules require the rocket to reach 750 feet and return to the ground in 36 to 39 seconds. Munson said the team may aim roughly 100 feet higher during planning to compensate for wind and other variables.
Finding the right motor has been one of the toughest problems. According to Munson, one available option could barely propel the rocket to 750 feet, while another could send it beyond 1,000 feet.
Precision Work With Little Room for Error
Students began construction almost immediately after completing the design. They are using wood for the fins, cardboard for the body and durable nylon for the parachute, sophomore Inhee Do said.
Builders rely on X-Acto knives and sandpaper to shape each component to exact measurements. Even a small gap in the body tube could ruin the rocket’s aerodynamics and send it toward the ground, Do said.
Mentor Steve Morris is advising the students on propulsion and recovery systems while teaching broader engineering principles. He said a team project allows students with different abilities to contribute to a complicated build.
The club raised about $600 through membership dues to purchase its materials. Slow deliveries have added pressure because organized launch opportunities occur only once a month.
The team planned to hold test flights at Great Meadow Field in rural Virginia in early February. Although Morris said the students were making good progress, he cautioned against rushing as the launch window approached.
“Launch fever is a thing,” Morris said, warning that haste can undermine complex projects.
For the team, success will involve more than its place in the standings. A safe first flight would require the rocket to rise properly, deploy its parachute and return without breaking the egg carried as its payload.
The launch will also give students a dramatic payoff for months of hands-on work. Morris said the rocket is expected to accelerate from zero to 250 mph in two seconds.
Sim is already looking beyond the club’s debut season. With seniors set to graduate, she hopes younger members will carry this year’s lessons into future competitions and begin next season further along the learning curve.