A couple weeks’ back, I announced my exciting partnership with Polaris Aerospace, a high school model rocketry club. In Part 1, I shared details about who Polaris is, and how they selected the components for the model rocket they will be sending into space later this summer (including Circuit Wizardry’s STARLIGHT and STARLIGHT MINI circuit boards).
In part 2 of this blog post, I want to share more about Polaris’s process and approach for achieving their big goal.
What was the Polaris’ team’s biggest challenge in building a model rocket that will make it to space?
The biggest challenge of the development of the vehicle has been manufacturing. It’s very easy to get carried away in CAD designing extreme geometries and novel solutions to problems. But the reality is, most things designed in CAD are downright impossible to manufacture.
We’ve overcome this by creating partnerships with organizations that give us access to industrial machinery. This makes manufacture of critical rocket components much easier.
How will you be monitoring the rocket on the day of launch?
We’ll be running a set of GoPro cameras near the launch pad to capture the liftoff from every possible angle we can.
Vehicle monitoring will be courtesy of the KATE-3’s ground station, which will give us full flight data no matter the vehicle’s location and line of sight, due to the high-power radio antenna onboard. Additionally, we’re in the middle of figuring out a manual abort system that will enable us to prevent the staging event from occurring in case of a first stage anomaly.
What has been the most rewarding part of this project so far?
That would be the feeling of pulling off a successful launch. During the testing campaign for the Space Shot Vehicle, we faced many difficulties with recovery of the first stage prototypes. Figuring out our problem with recovery packaging and actually solving it was the best feeling in the world!
That being said, making memories as a team has been even more rewarding. There are a lot of moments we refer back to when we’re working together, and it makes the team environment the best one we’ve ever worked in.
Conclusion
The Polaris team is busy prepping for their summer launch to space. I’m excited that they’ve included STARLIGHT products in their launch, and I’ll share all the results after the launch date, as well as any learnings that we can incorporate back into the STARLIGHT family of products.
In the meantime, check out Polaris Aerospace on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Patreon.
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