Comet Rocketry competed in the International Rocket Engineering Competition in Midland, Texas during the June 9-14 conference where their high-powered rocket, “Bonita,” was tested in nearly every metric, from launch, ability to collect flight data and successful return in one piece.
Over 140 teams, some from countries like Brazil, Thailand, and Australia, came to IREC to show off everything from their rockets’ body and design to its ability to not explode. The competition features divisions for multiple different rocketry aspects, such as whether the rocket’s motor was student-designed or purchased commercially and how high the rocket will be flown; Comet Rocketry competed in the student-designed motor and 10,000-foot altitude division.
“It meant so much to me because we all put a lot of effort into this rocket,” mechanical engineering senior Anisa Roshan-Zamir, a Comet Rocketry member that helped to build the body of the rocket, said when discussing her time at the competition.
At IREC, all rockets must be thoroughly checked for problems that could affect their success; if problems arise, they are not allowed to launch.
“There’s two safety reviews, one to make sure that everything looks good and one right before launching,” mechanical engineering senior Neo Bellefeuille, current lead of the Simulations team, said. “They [IREC judges] take a look at everything; they look at motor casing, they look at fin retention … Everything looked good, safe for everyone.”
The Simulations team’s purpose is to make sure that all components of the rocket — its propulsion material, design of its fins, nosecone, weight, etc. — allow for a successful flight with the use of computer software. Comet Rocketry passed both safety reviews. However, during the flight of “Bonita,” the motor burned too fast which caused a domino effect of problems.
“What happened was the motor was planned to burn out in under four seconds; it burned out in just under three,” Bellefeuille said. The one-second change meant the rocket was moving faster than expected.
“We broke the sound barrier which is really cool,” mechanical engineering junior Olivia Johnson, incoming director of Comet Rocketry, said. “It did too good, but it also came with drawbacks.”
When a rocket deploys its parachute, it must split the body tube for the parachute to inflate, which slows the descent of the rocket; additionally, the rocket should be at its apogee — or maximum height — when this happens. “Bonita” moving faster than expected changed the team’s desired apogee, which caused the rocket to keep moving when it wasn’t supposed to. Because the rocket didn’t stop at its desired apogee, when the parachutes deployed, the rocket’s separated body tubes hit against each other, resulting in some fragments breaking off. Additionally, due to the faster air speed against the rocket, some surface tabs were ripped off.
“Unfortunately, that meant we didn’t get any points for recovery; but I’m still really satisfied with what our team did,” Johnson said.
IREC judging doesn’t just account for what happened to the rocket’s body, but also awards points for safety analysis, flight performance to its apogee and what data they received from the rocket’s computer, among other things. Computer engineering senior Aadesh Senthilkumar, the incoming lead for the Avionics team that designed the rocket’s main computer, said the rocket’s flight data got corrupted.
“It didn’t show the right day for some reason; [but] our avionics did work,” Senthilkumar said.
With the Avionics team’s design, the rocket gathered important data points, such as its new apogee being around 12,000 feet, and it deployed its parachutes, allowing for a safe return. Because of the bad luck with the dates, IREC judging gave them zero points as well.
“We did design the nose cone around going at Mach (the speed of sound in air and a speed Comet Rocketry hoped to not reach),” says Philip Green, lead of the Structures team; the Structures team built the physical body of the rocket.
Leading up to the competition, the Comet Rocketry team proactively addressed problems the rocket could experience, such as flying at the speed of sound. Mechanical engineering junior Philip Green, lead of the Structures team that built the rocket’s body, said the nosecone was designed around reaching that speed just in case. Reflecting on the recent competition results, with its drawbacks and successes, Green said numerous changes were on the table to increase the success of a possible future rocket, such as taking away the rocket’s boat tail due to its needless addition of weight and moving the main parachute along the shock cord (the rope that connects the separated body tubes) to prevent the two separated body tubes from hitting each other.
“I’m proud of everything that we’ve accomplished,” Green said. “We were able to put this under our belt. [We can] give the future members of Rocketry knowledge that we gained this year.”