Meridian

Meridian is our next generation rocket project.  

This rocket seeks to improve on all elements of our previous designs with a full carbon fiber airframe, GPS tracking systems, an adjustable water ballast system, and experimental payloads. This new design is significantly more compact while obtaining over twice the max altitude of our previous designs, as well as making various quality of life improvements.

Specifications:

Height: 6' - 6 2/8"

Max Velocity: 543 mph (mach 0.72)

Apogee: 5,232 ft (dependent on payload)

Airframe:

Meridian uses a carbon fiber airframe.  This change allows us to increase the rocket body stiffness and allows for a greater inner diameter for components.  The body supports all our individual components including our main and drogue parachute, water ballast system, and engine and fin assembly.  The inner frame is a combination of polycarbonate carbon fiber 3D printed components and birch wood for weight savings.

The airframe is significantly shorter than our previous design to increase weight efficiency.  While this would decrease stability, we have a significantly denser rocket and have redesigned the fins.  With these changes we have arrived at a design that is more stable and capable of moving double the payload to 5,000 feet, over double our previous max altitude.

This design utilizes two parachutes, a drogue and main.  This allows us to have a back up parachute while also decreasing drift by slowing the rocket’s descent in stages and keeping us closer to our landing zone.

We developed an in house process for creating carbon fiber sheets.  Each carbon fiber sheet starts off as a roll of carbon fiber fabric. This fabric is coated in two-part resin and then placed under vacuum for 24 hours to remove impurities and air bubbles. This material is durable and has fantastic tensile strength.

These sheets were then machined down and sanded to their final shape before being fitted on our lower airframe assembly which is then epoxied together and inserted into the lower airframe.

The assembly is held together by two birch panels which center the rocket motor, and are attached to blue tube (a special paper composite tube) which provides extra rigidity and structure. 

The panels slot into our carbon fiber polycarbonate prints which pin our fins. The material choice was used for its significantly higher rigidity compared to traditional 3d printer filaments as well as its higher temperature resistance as the vehicle will be launched in the desert.