This June, the TU Wien Space Team successfully launched a rocket for the very first time on Austrian territory. For this launch event, the flight model making club FMBC-Vienna invited us to their airfield in Tattendorf (Lower Austria).
Our goals for this event were to test the following:
- a novel 3D-printed nosecone with integrated electronics bay
- a 3D-printed mounting for several micro switches for sequential powering and arming of the electronics while the airframe is fully closed (activated by a rod or a ball lock pin)
- clustering 3xD9 motors with a 3D-printed tailcone
- new electronics for the igniter channels
- software, especially the state machine which included a new event system and apogee detection, realised via a Kalman filter
The following pictures show the structure of the nosecone. The nosecone was printed with the FDM-method out of PLA. The nosecone accommodates our flight management system FMS3.2, an Altimax Simply 2016 Altimeter, the mentioned microswitches, and the batteries.
During this flight event three successful flights of the STR Needle have been conducted:
- 2 flights with an 3xD9-cluster with max. altitude of 132m and 126 m
- 1 flight with an Aerotech F24 with max. altitude of 38m (which is a new ST-record)
The newly developed components and the software-components passed all tests.
We would like to thank FMBC-Vienna for the invite to their airfield and on site organisational help.