Portland State Aerospace Society
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The Portland State Aerospace Society (or PSAS), founded in 1997, is a student group at Portland State University building high powered rockets with the vision of putting nanosatellites into Earth orbit. Pursuing this vision has led to building advanced avionics, adaptable airframes, and high energy rocket engines. PSAS attempts to be open in its development, including posting CAD drawings and schematics, and maintaining its GPL and MIT-licensed software in git and Subversion.[1][2][3]
[edit] Rocket generations
[edit] LV0
The first airframe, LV0 was a proof of concept for some of the radio systems, including real-time broadcast video. LV0 was launched in June 1998.[1]
[edit] LV1
The second airframe, LV1 was flown to 3.6 km (12,000 feet) in April 1999. It added an emergency uplink system, an Inertial Measurement Unit, and more advanced telemetry.[1]
LV1b was an extension of the LV1 rocket to add a GPS module, an improved flight computer, and improved IMU. It was flown to 13.53 km (11,600 feet) in October 2000.[1]
[edit] LV2
The third airframe, LV2 was first flown as an airframe only (with commercial flight computer) in September 2002. It reached apogee at around 18,000 feet and a maximum velocity of 900 miles per hour, over Mach 1.
LV2.1 was the second flight of LV2 in August 2005, with the complete avionics system. The modular aluminum airframe measured 11 feet tall, 5.25 inches wide, and weighed 115 pounds. The avionics system included a 133 MHz Pentium flight computer running Linux, using 802.11 telemetry broadcast via custom-made cylindrical patch antennas, a GPS module, IMU module, temperature sensor, altimeter, and recovery node. The various nodes ran on PIC microcontrollers and were connected via a CAN bus. The motor was an ammonium perchlorate and aluminum mixture.[1][4]
The rocket reached a maximum altitude over 18,000 feet AGL. Rocket telemetry was successful, but the nosecone appeared to not release at apogee when the recovery charges were fired. The result was a descent in "lawn dart" mode, where no parachutes open and the rocket lands nearly straight into the ground.[5][6]
[edit] LV2.3
The fourth airframe and replacement avionics are currently being designed. The airframe will retain the modular design, moving to 5.5-inch-diameter (140 mm) tubing (a more standard size). The next avionics system plans to use a PowerPC flight computer and ARM microcontroller nodes connected via USB.
A successful launch of the new airframe and recovery hardware was made on May 31, 2009. This flight used commercial flight avionics, as well as carrying an experimental avionics/telemetry system (TeleMetrum) developed by Keith Packard and a digital video recorder. [7]
Flights in 2010 tested active roll control using small mid-body canard fins. The second flight introduced a rear fin canister on bearings ("spin can") to avoid coupling with the canard vortices, an effect noticed on the first flight.[8]
[edit] Other projects
Other areas of research include design and testing of an oxygen/paraffin hybrid rocket engine, development of real-time control algorithms for in-flight steering (a requirement for orbital spaceflight), CAN bus debugging hardware ("CANtelope"), enhancing the Linux USB driver, and development of open source GPS firmware.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Perkins, J.; Greenberg, A.; Sharp, J.; Cassard, D.; Massey, B. "Free Software and High-Power Rocketry: The Portland State Aerospace Society". Proc 2003 USENIX Annual Technical Conference, Freenix Track. pp. 245–258. http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix03/tech/freenix03/perkins.html.
- ^ Pesznecker, Sue (2005-03-04). "It really is rocket science". Daily Vanguard. http://www.dailyvanguard.com/2.4060/it-really-is-rocket-science-1.1136713.
- ^ Garn, Talmage (2007-10-02). "Local company gives Aerospace Society boost". Daily Vanguard. http://www.dailyvanguard.com/2.4060/local-company-gives-aerospace-society-boost-1.309946.
- ^ Delio, Michelle (2003-06-09). "Linux Rocket Hits the Launch Pad". Wired. http://wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/06/59144.
- ^ Pesznecker, Sue (2005-09-15). "One Small Step". Daily Vanguard. http://www.dailyvanguard.com/2.4060/one-small-step-1.1135609.
- ^ Fitzsimons, Eva (2007-04-26). "Back with a bang: rocket club". Daily Vanguard. http://www.dailyvanguard.com/2.4060/back-with-a-bang-rocket-club-1.310951.
- ^ May 31, 2009 launch
- ^ Launch of LV2.3 with roll control
