RRS presents at Mars City PowerLab 2017

Mars City Foundation has introduced the Power Lab for this year, 2017, to help the Mars generation develop the skills and build the tools and technology necessary for this important time and mission.

Starting August 1st, the Power Lab is a two week long “science retreat” where students will have the opportunity to explore ideas in a workshop with experts from NASA and with other technical organizations giving cross-disciplinary expertise for PowerLab attendees to begin tangibly building the technology and tools to build mankind’s future life on Mars.

Mars City Foundation

Mars City Design

RRS vice president, Frank Miuccio presented on the third day of the workshop at the University of Southern California (USC) with a presentation on the “Past, Present and Future of the RRS”. The RRS was glad to share some of our history and present endeavors and aspirations for our society.

PowerLab attendees inspect an RRS standard alpha rocket

Frank also showed the video of George Garboden’s altitude record setting amateur rocket launch back in November 23, 1996 at Black Rock, Nevada.  

RRS presents to the PowerLab attendees

Frank closed the presentation with an update on the SuperDosa project to reclaim the amateur altitude record for the RRS. The students had many questions and was interested in the many things that the RRS was doing.

The RRS is glad to continue our support of the Mars City Foundation and we hope to be present for other Mars City events in the future. The RRS thanks Vera Mulyani for inviting the society to be a part of the PowerLab event.

For any questions regarding the RRS, please contact Frank Miuccio:
vicepresident@rrs.org

For questions regarding Mars City PowerLab, visit the Mars City Foundation website:
Mars City Foundation

 

An Evening on Mars

RRS president Osvaldo Tarditti and RRS VP Frank Miuccio attended, “An Evening on Mars”, hosted by Mars City Design and Digital Hollywood on May 25, 2017 at the Skirball Cultural Center. Over 125 people attended this exciting and very successful evening. The RRS has been glad to collaborate with Mars City Design over the past year.

Mars City Design
Digital Hollywood

Attendees of this sold out event got to enjoy a Martian-themed dinner to experience what dining might be on Mars. Skirball Center chefs prepared a variety of foods grown by different organizations including Martian Farms, Martian Vineyard wines and vegetarian butchers.

Martian Farms – Facebook
Martian Vineyard

One of the main guest speakers at the event was the mayor of California City, Jennifer Wood. Mayor Wood gave a brief background of California City and discussed how the projects from Mars City Design would become an asset for the city.

Mayor Jennifer Wood, California City

Mars City Design is looking to place a prototype 3D-printed building at the RRS Mojave Test Area (MTA).

At the event the artist and filmmaker, Jan Frojdman, presented a beautiful flyover video compiled from the HiRISE camera orbital footage of the red planet. The link below is a sample from an article posted on CNET.com

Jan Frojdman – Mars Flyover (CNET.com)

The RRS donated a standard alpha rocket to Mars City Design for the event. The winner of the raffle was the organization, Space Nation. Although they decided not launch the rocket, since they really loved it and wanted to keep it intact, Space Nation did attend our launch event at the MTA with UCLA on June 3, 2017.

Space Nation

One of the highlights for the evening was the announcement of Mars City Design’s Challenges 2017 Finalists. The link below has more of the rich details on each of the winning design finalists.

Mars City Design – Finalists 2017

The RRS would like to thank Mars City Design and Digital Hollywood for producing a great event. We look forward to partnering with Mars City Design in further projects coming soon.

blue sunset on Mars, courtesy of JPL

***

MTA launch event, 2017-06-03

The RRS was glad to host another launch event at the Mojave Test Area (MTA) on June 3, 2017. With 71 people in attendance, this was one of the largest events we’ve had in recent memory at the MTA.

morning arrival of the UCLA caravan, 06-03-2017

Dave Crisalli was our pyro-op for this launch event that had a set of 10 model rocket launches for the MAE 157A class, 3 RRS alphas, 2 RRS betas, and another cold flow test series by the UCLA liquid rocket team in preparation for the FAR-MARS competition. Dave Crisalli was kind enough to allow me (Dave Nordling) to assist on the micrograin launches to gain experience as a pyro-op.

David Crisalli (RRS) and Dr. Mitchell Spearrin (UCLA)

It was also new member Bill Janczewsky’s first time at an RRS MTA launch event. We thank Bill for taking pictures of the launches. If anyone else has photos to share from the event, let me know.

Before we got started, we held our safety briefing with everyone in attendance. The briefing also introduced everyone to the purpose of each of the buildings and structures, how the testing will be conducted and outlined the unique and common hazards at the MTA.

Safety briefing at the RRS MTA, 06-03-2017

Dr. Mitchell Spearrin of UCLA brought his MAE 157A undergraduate class for the final weeks of the rocket build and trajectory lab. Ten custom rockets were built using F-motors and flying an altimeter chip with a hard-boiled egg on each. Surprisingly, more than half recovered their eggs with the shells in tact. Data was taken on each flight with good consistency, one trajectory I viewed from a smartphone application showed a maximum altitude of 2000 feet. All vehicles were recovered. I hope UCLA will send the RRS a compilation of their results to post here soon.

UCLA payload processing for MAE 157A

F-motors for the UCLA MAE 157A class

MAE 157A class, Spring Quarter 2017

the 10 rockets, up close

Dr. Mitchell Spearrin discusses the results of the MAE 157A launches

Preparation for the micrograin launches took some time. Osvaldo and I did the mixing and loading. Larry completed the assemblies with the burst disk and nozzles.

RRS micrograin mixing apparatus

micrograin propellant mixture, zinc and sulfur powder

RRS beta tube, filled

Larry loads the nozzle and finishes the assembly

During the preparations for the micro-grain rockets (RRS alphas and betas), We managed to get the LNG tanks unloaded from the truck. Many thanks for the extra help given by the students of UCLA. The LNG tanks will be very useful additions to the liquid rocket projects at the RRS. With luck, we’ll acquire an oxygen dewar to provide the oxidizer supply to our small engine development projects.

two LNG tanks delivered to the MTA site

Richard Garcia also managed to find an old beta that Osvaldo launched last year with a parachute recovery system. We are thankful to the folks at FAR for finding and holding on to the vehicle as they must have found it downrange for us.

Osvaldo’s red beta from last year, recovered

Red Beta payload

The recovered beta also had a graphite throat insert which held up very well.

Recovered red beta, nozzle with graphite insert

Mars City Design held their “Evening on Mars” gala fundraiser on May 25th.
The RRS donated an alpha rocket to the raffle held at the event.
Mars City Design.com

The winners were part of a film crew from Finland called “Fun Academy” which is part of the larger organization, “SpaceNation.org”.
Fun Academy
Space Nation

The RRS was glad to support Space Nation in their production at the MTA launch event. We hope the crew can share some of their best still images and video from the launch. The crew had a drone camera which should have captured an excellent perspective.

Mazdak Nassir (left) and Kasimir Lehto (right) of Space Nation

The UCLA liquid rocket team conducted another series of cold flow tests. The testing captured the pressure, temperature and flow rate profiles which met predictions. UCLA is working hard after their PDR was held this week in preparation for next year’s Mars Society liquid rocket competition at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry site.
Mars Society – liquid rocket competition at FAR

Rocket Project at UCLA, logo

UCLA cold flow test, 06-03-2017

UCLA switching bottles, cold flow testing

The last event was the micrograin rocket launches. UCLA had two RRS standard alphas and two standard betas for demonstration of the larger and more powerful amateur rockets. The RRS launched a third alpha that day with a yellow body and fins. With all attendees safely undercover, the launch did not fail to impress!

Osvaldo holds the two alphas for UCLA

two betas for UCLA before loading

gathering everyone to the observation bunker for the micrograin launches

Larry doing road checks waiting to clear for launch

bunker briefing, be quiet after launch and listen

montage of a beta taking off

With all of the action, it made for a very late day. With the temperature exceeding 100 Fahrenheit that day, most people didn’t have the strength to hunt for the UCLA alphas or betas after launch. The sound of impact was very, very faint, but a couple hits were heard.

Before the day’s micrograin launches, the alpha rails were turned slightly north from due west before the launch as the alphas seem to be falling more and more to the south. Impact on one of the alphas seemed to be due west. The impact on the second beta was heard in the southwest. Winds were low to very light and pushing to the east so I would expect to find the vehicles closer to the launch site. With time, we hope to recover all of them and recover some of the parts.

In particular, the second beta was outfitted with an altimeter chip. The aluminum payload tube was vented with holes. Although the metal tube would shield the signal from the transmitter. the chip has memory storage that could be recovered if the rocket is found not too long from now.

altimeter chip inside of a custom payload shroud within the second UCLA beta

altimeter shell mounted on the beta coupler

UCLA’s 2nd beta with altimeter, vented payload tube, SpaceNation.org sticker attached

loading the RRS standard beta into the rails

It was a long and hot day for everyone. Most objectives were accomplished and we hope to support UCLA in further testing including the hot fire of their liquid rocket when they are ready.

Our next monthly meeting is next Friday, June 9th, at 7:30pm at the Ken Nakaoka Community Center in Gardena, California. We have been fortunate to have many new student members join us from UCLA and we hope they continue to be active with the RRS.

If there is anything that I missed or misstated, please let me know.
secretary@rrs.org