Totally off topic post

I was having a debate on another blog about the hydrogen economy.
I created this post so the debate could move over here and not clutter up someone else's blog.

for rocket news we will be testing the printed SS motor this weekend, and we will be presenting at space access.

Also good luck to team armadillo and the tube rocket.

Plans Modified....

My Son had work to do this weekend and could not go to FAR.

I chose to cancel rocket testing this weekend and work on my GPS project.
I got the Rakon GMM8652 based front end working.
So now that I have a fully working front end the real work starts.

I'm currently routing the raw data into an FPGA , but instead of doing the processing there I'm just using that as a path to record the data. Recording raw data records (4M bytes/sec) and post processing with the FASTGPS open source software GPS program on a PC.

Next Step do the corelator processing in the FPGA. I have that verilog code written, but its mostly untested at this point.
Rough order of events:

1. Prove the RF and FPGA hardware works. (done)
2. Get one correlation channel tracking one sat.
3. Get 6 or more channels tracking sats.
4. Calculate position, velocity, time (PVT) based on this tracking data.
5. Add data delay buffer and feedback from IMU data to aid loop tracking.
6. Fly the thing.
   

I will probably take a detour that that records raw IMU and GPS data on some flash memory,
and fly that so we have a good raw data set to use for testing and simulation.

Past...Present..Future...Plans (updated)

Past:
On March 5th we watched Garvey space have a perfect flight.
We tested a commercial GPS and out stainless printed motor.

The Motor had cat pack issues,
The peroxide has to flow through the cat pack and not around it.
This is done by adding rings that look like piston rings and expand out against the barrel of the cat pack area and block flow that wants to go around the outside. I disassembled the pack tonight and I had 4 anti channeling rings in the pack. The top ring was fine, the second ring was a bit distorted, the 3rd was badly burnt and thinned and the last one came out in tiny bits. I'm going to try stainless C clips as anti channeling baffles and we will see how that goes.


The GPS stopped updating the moment the motor lit.


Present:
I'm going to use some tougher stainless snap rings as anti channeling baffles.

Today I received my 2nd version of a GPS front end board and hopefully will get to try it this weekend. (rakon grm8652 integrated GPS front end )

The Max2769 eval board is due in on Friday if UPS is to be believed.


Future:
This Saturday we will try firing the small stainless printed motor with modified anti channeling baffles in the cat pack.

Some time in April we might get our first test tank under the Tank development process with we are doing jointly with microcosm.

I have high hopes to have a high dynamics GPS to actually fly by the next FAR outing the first Saturday in April.


My current Plan of record:

1)Work on the small 3D printed motors both stainless and aluminum until I have a viable 3rd stage motor.

2)In parallel work on high dynamics GPS and IMU integration using HPR rockets to test,

3)Tank development continues. (my involvement with this is limited until testing is needed)


4)When I have the high dynamic gps/imu working add some small canard control fins to the
HPR test rocket and see if we can control the trajectory.
This may possibly be done with vanes in the exhaust instead of canard fins.


5)Combine steps 1-4 to see if we can fly a small rocket to 100Km.