Copyright (c) 2013 Dublin Institute of Technology All rights reserved. http://arrow.dit.ie/srgcon Recent documents in Conference Papers en-us Wed, 15 May 2013 12:26:21 PDT 3600 http://arrow.dit.ie/srgcon/2 http://arrow.dit.ie/srgcon/2 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 07:55:02 PDT In any sounding rocket, volume and mass are at a premium. Payload designers strive towards smaller, lighter and cheaper mechanisms which can achieve the same goals. This project aims to reduce the mass and volume for probe deployment booms and their deployment mechanisms. An experiment (Telescobe) to test a low cost novel method of boom deployment using telescopic carbon fibre poles was developed. A custom camera measurement system was also developed to measure boom length and harmonic deflection. This experiment was flown onboard the REXUS 9 sounding rocket [1] in February 2011 from Esrange space centre, Sweden. The experiment functioned as expected in all pre-flight tests. However, an unexpected malfunction in the experiment hatch door was experienced during flight which prevented the boom from being extended through the hatch. Despite this, it was found that the carbon fibre sections, all mechanisms and hardware, survived the flight and functioned as expected as far as possible. It is hoped that with a redesigned hatch, the experiment can be relaunched onboard a future REXUS rocket.

]]> Mark Wylie et al. http://arrow.dit.ie/srgcon/1 http://arrow.dit.ie/srgcon/1 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:15:01 PDT Typical measurement probe deployment systems on sounding rockets employ hinged booms which extend the probes away from the rocket. This configuration often has a significant mass and may require a considerable amount of the rocket’s valuable payload volume. In an effort to reduce both mass and volume, the DIT Space Research Group have designed a light weight carbon fibre telescopic boom system, compatible with measurement probes commonly used in upper atmosphere research. Our design has been selected to be tested on a suborbital space flight onboard the REXUS 9 sounding rocket in March 2011. The purpose of this test is to characterise the boom system in-situ and increase its Technology Readiness Level (TRL). The system is capable of deploying a boom with a mock electromagnetic field (E-field) probe to a length of 1.63m ±0.5%. The mock probe will be attached to the distal end of the boom and will house six LEDs, which emit light at a wavelength of 620 nm. A filtered camera measurement system will gather this light allowing the boom deployment length, deflection and amplitudes of any displacement due to vibration to be measured and recorded. An accelerometer mounted in the probe will monitor vibration frequencies. The boom will deploy from the rocket at an altitude of approximately 70Km and will be jettisoned before re-entry. All data obtained during the flight will be stored on a solid state memory device and then recovered for post flight analysis. A downlink to a ground station will provide a live TV feed of boom deployment and jettison. The entire system has a mass budget of less than 4kg and can be contained in a rocket module of 348 mm diameter and 220 mm height.

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