UC Irvine Rocket Project
Roman Vaisman, Shao-Ping Sung, James Costanzo, Raul Martinez, and David Langan
Mentor: Dr. Kenneth Mease
In September 2006, a group of multidisciplinary engineering students formed the second Rocket
Project in the history of UCI. The goals of the UCI Rocket Project are to: (1) Design, build,
launch, and recover a rocket capable of delivering a CanSat type payload to an altitude of 12,000
feet Above Ground Level (AGL); (2) Develop an attitude control system to control the roll angle
of the rocket; (3) Design and build an onboard data acquisition system capable of recording and
transmitting such parameters as altitude, velocity and acceleration for use in post-flight analysis;
and (4) Design and build a redundant video recording system capable of recording and
transmitting video to show the deployment of the parachute and the effectiveness of the attitude
control system. The requirements, design process and decisions for the subteam areas of airframe
and propulsion, roll control, data and video telemetry, and recovery system are presented. The
Airframe and Propulsion System (APS) subteam used rocket performance simulations, CAD
modeling and stress analysis to design the external and internal rocket structure and select a
rocket motor. The Roll Control System (RCS) subteam is using computer programming skills
and control design theory to develop an algorithm to control the roll attitude of the rocket. The
Data and Video Telemetry System (DTVS) subteam has set up avionics for data acquisition with
real-time telemetry. The Recovery System (RS) subteam has analyzed various configurations and
descent rates for a safe and reliable parachute system for rocket recovery. The launch is
scheduled for June 9, 2007 at the Lucerne Dry Lake bed. Flight data will be analyzed to
determine system performance and to decide if the project goals were achieved.