Rice Eclipse Rocketry · Level 1 certified · Avionics-Mechanical Lead, Jan 2025 to present
Two things on this page: the Level 1 certification rocket I designed, built, and flew, and the reusable avionics test rocket my subteam is building for the 2026-27 flight campaign.
Level 1 certification
[add: rocket name, kit or scratch build]. I designed it in OpenRocket, built it, and flew it on [add: motor, e.g. an H-class] at [add: launch site] on [add: date]. Stable flight, [add: apogee] ft apogee, and a clean recovery, which is what the certification requires.
[placeholder: video] file: assets/l1/holding.mp4 What to capture: you holding the rocket, a slow turn so the fins, nose cone, and rail buttons are visible. 10 to 20 seconds. A photo version (assets/l1/holding.jpg) works too.
Me with the rocket before the flight.
[placeholder: video] file: assets/l1/launch.mp4 Launch video, ignition through the first few seconds of boost. If someone else filmed it, ask for the original file, not the texted copy.
Launch.
[placeholder: OpenRocket screenshot] file: assets/l1/openrocket.png The design view with the sim output visible: apogee, stability margin, CG and CP markers. A second screenshot of the altitude and velocity plot goes in assets/l1/openrocket-sim.png.
OpenRocket design and simulation.
[placeholder: simulation plot] file: assets/l1/openrocket-sim.png Altitude and velocity vs time from the OpenRocket simulation.
Simulated flight profile.
Simulation vs flight
Predicted (OpenRocket)
Flown
Apogee
[add] ft
[add, from the altimeter if you had one]
Max velocity
[add]
Stability margin
[add] cal
Rail exit velocity
[add]
Motor
[add]
Recovery
[add: parachute size, deployment method]
What went wrong, and what I would change
The fin attachment. The way the fins were mounted on the L1 lowered the stability margin and left them prone to cracking. On the next rocket the fins mount through the body tube on a jig with epoxy fillets. [confirm and add how the L1 fins were actually attached]
[add: what surprised you at the launch, e.g. weathercocking, a hard landing, a late deployment]
Prediction vs flight. The table above is the real test of the OpenRocket model. Where the flown numbers miss the predicted ones, the cause is usually drag or mass I did not model honestly. [fill in the table and add what the gap was]
2026-27 avionics test rocket (in progress)
Goal: a fully reusable, 8 g, sensor-testing rocket that the avionics subteam can fly three times in one campaign (target: February to April 2027) while they iterate their flight computer. My subteam owns the airframe, the avionics bay, and the recovery system. My job as lead is to make sure the mechanical side of the rocket is never the bottleneck.
Requirements
Requirement
Design response
8 g flight to push the avionics
Motor class and airframe sized for acceleration, not apogee. Expected apogee about 8,000 ft.
Reusable across three flights
3 in fiberglass airframe, fillet-epoxied fins on a jig, recovery sized for a 25 to 35 ft/s touchdown. Faster than 35 and the rocket breaks. Slower and it drifts.
Quick turnaround between flights
Avionics bay slides in as one unit. Reloadable motor casing. Parachute sized once and packed the same way every flight.
Recovery that cannot fail on a test flight
Dual black powder charges with a backup flight computer. Ground separation testing before the first launch.
Design work so far
OpenRocket vehicle design. Iterating motor class against stability margin and rail exit velocity, with real component masses in the model.
MATLAB recovery model. Takes vendor parachute drag data and outputs descent rate, wind drift, and touchdown speed, holding landings to the 25 to 35 ft/s window. The descent loads feed back into the airframe and shock-cord sizing.
Structural sizing. 8 g launch loads and the ejection-charge shock on the fiberglass bulkheads and shock-cord hardpoints in ANSYS Mechanical, sized against the MATLAB descent loads. [status: in work, update when the runs are done]
Avionics bay design and component selection.[add: current state]
[placeholder: OpenRocket screenshot] file: assets/l2/openrocket.png Current design view with apogee, stability margin, and max acceleration visible.
Current OpenRocket design.
[placeholder: MATLAB plot] file: assets/l2/matlab-descent.png Descent rate or touchdown speed vs parachute size, with the 25 to 35 ft/s window marked.
Recovery model output.
Where it stands
[add: current status, next milestone, first launch target]
What could go wrong, and how I am planning for it
The motor class decides everything. The 8 g target is an acceleration target, so the first question is what speed and impulse actually get there. If an I-class motor does it, the airframe stays simpler. If it needs a bigger motor, the design goes minimum-diameter with a bulkhead-mounted motor instead of centering rings. That calculation comes before any hardware is ordered.
Recovery failure is the campaign killer. One failed deployment ends a three-flight campaign on flight one. That is why the design carries dual black powder charges, a backup flight computer, and ground separation testing with the real charges before the first launch.
Fins break on shape and velocity. The L1 taught that. Fiberglass fins, jig-aligned, epoxy fillets, no tip-to-tip layup because the time and cost do not buy enough on a subsonic flight.
The touchdown speed window is narrow. Faster than 35 ft/s the airframe breaks. Slower than 25 it drifts in the wind and the recovery walk gets long. The MATLAB model exists to land inside that window, and the shock cords are sized off the same descent loads.
Sourcing and borrowing. Fiberglass tubes, a reloadable motor casing, and shock cords all come from outside the subteam. Each one is an ask with a person's name on it, and each is on the schedule before the build, not during it. [update as the asks close]
The mechanical side cannot be the bottleneck. The avionics subteam's whole year depends on this rocket being ready to fly in February. My job as lead is to make sure they are iterating their flight computer, not waiting on an airframe.
Next steps
Finish the 8 g speed and impulse calculation and lock the motor class.
Close the OpenRocket design with real component masses and the chosen airframe: stability margin, rail exit velocity, and expected apogee.
Run the ANSYS bulkhead and hardpoint cases against the MATLAB descent loads.
Order the airframe and recovery hardware; borrow the casing.
Ground separation test at the test site, then the first launch of the three-flight campaign. [add: target dates]