This is an L1/2 high powered rocket being scratch built. Its main purpose is to serve as a test bed for the Spike flight computer as well as to provide hands on experience with composites. The design was done in SolidWorks, where FEA was done to validated the design.
The design consists of cardboard tubes reinforced by carbon fiber, with a fiberglass coupler that houses the avionics, specifically the spike flight computer. It is designed to be launch using COTS solid rocket motors, and features a dual-deploy recovery system, facilitated by black powder charges triggered by the flight computer.
The rocket's performance was modeled by a 6-DOF simulator I wrote in MATLAB. It is quaternion based and calculates aerodynamic coefficients dynamically. The simulator is able to predict both apogee and stability of the rocket. The rocket has yet to fly, work was slowed by a case of Covid-19 in the family.
The body tubes and avionics bay are complete, as have the birch core carbon fiber fins. The fins now need to be integrated with the body an motor mount, and the recovery system installed. Once the rocket is put together more accurate simulation will be possible.
