First Nation Rocket Competition

Project Description

What is First Nation Rocket Competition?, October 9, 2021

NASA’s Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC) is pleased to announce the 13th Annual First Nations Launch (FNL) National Rocket Competition. This competition is an opportunity for students attending a Tribal College or University (TCU), a Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution (NASNTI), or who are members of an active American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) collegiate chapter to design, build, and fly a high-powered rocket to be launched at a competition at the Richard Bong State Recreational Area in Kansasville, WI. The project description is as follows; The team shall design a cold gas thruster system that controls the rocket’s Z-axis angular velocity during the coast phase of its ascent. The thruster shall increase the rocket's roll rate from 0 RPM to between 120-240 RPM for 3 seconds and then decrease this roll rate back to 0 RPM before reaching apogee. The team also needs to include an internal gyroscopic sensor and an external camera to verify that that the roll rate was achieved.  The rocket needs to reach an apogee of 3,500 ft – 4000 ft and should follow all other technical requirements described in the competition rule book.” This was cited from the FNL Mars challenge of the competition. 

Team Progress

The Captone team is well underway with the Rocket Competition. As of right now the rocket club/capstone will be reverse engineering an existing rocket kit in order to create our own Carbon Fiber composite Rocket through the help of Nova Kinetics fabrication company. The Capstone team will be focusing on the creation of the cold gas thruster system. The intent of this system is to create the rocket to spin mid-flight. Currently, the team is prototyping the solenoid valve circuit, with the absence of cold gas. The Team has a long way to go but it excited for further development of the system.