February and March Newsletter
February and March Newsletter
Welcome to the February and March Newsletter for Raider Aerospace Society (RAS). In this newsletter, we hope to provide an update on the two main RAS projects as well as RAS itself. We also plan to spend some taking a special look at our new autoclave design project.
To begin, Space Raiders has made progress by receiving the motors, motor casing, altimeters, and motor retainers from Apogee for our L1s. In terms of specific building progress, we have worked on epoxying in the centering rings, launch lugs, and fins. We have also worked on creating on a method to prevent the motor casing from sliding out of the rocket when its place in the inner tube of the rocket. Going forward, we plan to set up the electronics of the rockets and prepare the members for the launch date itself. As for the launch date, we are planning on launching on April 17th at Boys Ranch.
As for Pegasus, they are continuing their work developing a CAD model for their lightweight aircraft. Although they developed a rough design in December, they have been rigorously revising and refining their design so that it is optimal for competition. On top of that, they are testing their designs under FEA analysis to ensure the structural integrity of the aircraft and CFD analysis to optimize this aircraft’s performance. Specifically, they spent time analyzing, remodeling, and refining their models for the tail wing, vertical stabilizer, main wings, and machine guns over the past two months. Going forward, the team plans to work on finalizing their CFD analysis to obtain useful data to document for their final report and submission. Their final report and competition are online and will be occurring in mid-April.
As for the new autoclave design project, we decided to start this up to give newer members a challenging project to work on. We did this because a lot of these members couldn’t get too involved in the other two projects since they are both halfway completed and joining now isn’t particularly feasible. We tried to pick something that would add a lot of value for the club in years to come and would be a challenging experience for the members. The autoclave design project is a long-term project where we are tasking members to design and fabricate an autoclave that can create composite rocket tubing up to 6in in diameter and 4ft in length. This project will enhance the Space Raider team’s ability to compete in future large-scale competitions. On the topic of timeline, the group has been established and have been working on preliminary designs over the past two months. We plan to let the group finish their design for the remainder of the spring semester and over the summer with the beginning of fabrication happening once the fall semester starts.
Lastly, RAS is approaching the end of the academic year which means that we will be hosting officer elections and transitioning positions over to the next generation. With that, I would just like to let you know that there will be a new point of contact established for external outreach (alumni, sponsors, advisors, etc.). Ideally, this new point of contact will take over the newsletter and establish contact with everyone by sending out the April newsletter wrapping up RAS’s year. With that, I would like to thank you all for reading this newsletter over the course of the year and wish you all the best.