Inspired by NASA’s Artemis mission, Senior Design Team 502 seeks to design, fabricate, and fly a high powered rocket for the 2024 NASA Student Launch competition. The goals of this team, officially known as the Zenith program, are to make competition for the first time in school history, engage students of all ages in aerospace activities, and build the foundation for a successful aerospace program at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. This year’s rocket will safely fly and recover a 5lb payload, reaching an apogee of over 4000ft with dual-deploy capabilities. The launch vehicle features a fiberglass airframe, a SLS-manufactured nosecone and fins, and an avionics bay with full telemetry and GPS capabilities. This rocket represents the work of not just the senior design team, but the entire aerospace community at the college.

This year, Team 502 has completed a variety of deliverables for the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and NASA, as well as multiple launches at the SRA Rocket Ranch in Palm Bay, FL. Feedback on these milestones has been essential to the success of the team, and the team is currently working to perfect the full-scale vehicle for entry into the 2024 NASA Student Launch competition in Huntsville, AL.

Design

The team designed a dual-deploy rocket, which is composed of three sections that are held together with shear pins. These sections are separated by a CO2 ejection system, which pressurizes sections at the appropriate time to eject the parachutes. There are altimeters on board which collect flight data, allowing for the team to analyze results of each launch and compare them to OpenRocket simulations of the vehicle.

Each component of the rocket was carefully selected to allow the team to make official launch in Huntsville, Alabama. Detailed design reviews can be found in the attached documentation, as well as data and results from each launch.