Separation & Recovery

The team finished building the separation and recovery system and completed 2 ground tests. We identified a potential failure mode and will be revising the system.

Due to the design of tanks and the rules of DPF challenge, the team designed a Single Break Dual Deployment (SBDD) system. One main advantage of a SBDD system was its compactness because it uses one compartment to store components for two deployment events.  

The first deployment event will occur at an estimated apogee of 30,000 ft. The system will release the drogue parachute to decrease descend rate and stabilize the rocket. The second deployment occurs at 1000 ft above ground level. The sysem will deploy the main parachute to help the rocket reach a safe landing velocity. 

• The team chose a black powder ejection system over CO2 canisters for its lightweight and reliability. 

• During the first deployment event at 30,000 ft apogee, the e-match will ignite the black powder, pressurize the space, and break off the nylon shear pins on the nose cone. Sitting on top of the fiberglass deployment bay, the drogue parachute will deploy and pull out the main parachute bag.

• During the second deployment event at 1000 ft altitude, the e-match will ignite the black powder inside a tender descender to cut off the drogue and release the main parachute from its bag.

• After calculating the worst-case opening shock force to be 3800 lbf, the bulkhead design began. Deflection calculation was performed on the plate cross-section.

• The bulkhead used Aluminum 6061. It was 7.75'' in diameter and 0.5'' in thickness. It utilized 2 hoist rings in stock to distribute the load and a 1 ft fiberglass tube as deployment bay. 

• The bulkhead connected the system to the fuselage via axially tapped holes. It also had clearance holes on the surface for integration with load-bearing rods in the avionics bay.