| Cheers for this! Don't worry about the negativity, it's something I've come to expect from subject matter experts since this is a very long process I'm going down fraught with danger and legislation. One of the issues with solid rocket motors is that in the UK we can't manufacture our own solid rocket motors under the 1875 explosives act (supplemented by the EU Directive 2014/28/EU), so we have to purchase off the shelf rocket motors which are available in the UK. Flying in an air frame with these has several key issues: It won't be a solid test bed for our air frame weight, the centre of gravity will be offset, they aren't throttle-able, even the high specific impulse motors tend to have very short (sub 10 seconds) burn times, they don't generate shock cones, etc. One of my personal inspirations is the UCSRPL: http://www.uscrpl.com/ I imagine we'll have to follow in their footsteps: progressively more complex builds following on from a relatively simple starting point. The plan is to use as many pre-existing resources as possible, this means: - Using purchased fuel and oxidiser combinations instead of synthesis - Working on a software (virtualising the hardware) test bed for avionics, then progressing to breadboards, then to purchasing PCBs. It's worth mentioning that I will be a student of Computer Science, but I'm going in to this with a significant experience of real time programming and PCB design - previous companies I've worked at had embedded systems. - Using a simple system for recovery, most likely pressure deployed drogues fitted in the air frame cone, and an emitter which enables us to find it post touchdown. I also understand that it's likely going to take the majority of my degree to get this done. If we don't make it to the Karman line: that's also fine. I'm not daunted by the possibility of failure, I'm excited by it. We learn a lot from failure. The goal is to go as far as we can and develop our skills through iteration. |
You're reiterating some of the differences between a solid & liquid rocket, but that's not what I'm getting at. If you wait until you have a flight-ready liquid engine (think in years) to test an airframe and other subsystems, those subsystems won't exist. Buy some COTS solid motors and iterate on your subsystem design; the flight experience is invaluable. Any smaller testbeds you fly will not resemble the final airframe, and that's the point. Flying a research liquid engine is risky, you need something cheap to unit test features in your onboard systems---recovery, tracking, DAQ, etc.
It sounds like your hardware experience will give you a head start; a lot of amateur rocketeers don't have that. Regardless, please consider starting small and starting now. Getting a small airframe in the air and recovering it successfully with your own avionics is the first hurdle, should be your first short-term goal. I've met several students (and professionals) that jump straight into spaceshot projects and burn out pretty quickly.
Some of the replies in this thread are ludicrous (barge launch?). Hypergolics are a bad idea on the hobby level, but others have already touched on that and I think you'll come to the same conclusion on your own. You mention a decrease in engine complexity (in my mind it's small) but you're trading that for a huge jump in infrastructure capability.
Lean on the engineering department at your university and recruit some younger guys to help out. It sounds like you're already familiar with the style/structure of other university rocket teams, and that's probably what you should aim for IMO.