Successful Launch On July 17th, 2004 At NASA Wallops!

Designed and Built By Casper College, University of Cincinnati, & Natrona County School District Students

The Pathfinder Rocket was successfully launched on July 17th, 2004 @ 7:17am EDT from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. This was the first rocket launched by NASA that was designed and build by students. The rocket was eight inches in diameter and approximately 17 feet long. It had a dual deployment parachute system to land in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. The rocket had a floatation collar so it would float in the water and be recovered by boat after the flight. It had a TV camera looking aft so that a “real time” image of the ground as the rocket lifts off. Instrumentation on board the rocket was data logged and transmitted to the ground via an “S” band transmitter. NASA provided radar tracking for determining altitude and the landing area.
The upper body of the rocket was built by University of Cincinnati Engineering graduate students. The upper body included the nosecone, recovery system, TV camera, S-band transmitter, inertial measurement unit and computer to control the recovery system. The lower body was the rocket motor which was designed and built by Casper College and Natrona County School District (NCSD) students. The only part of the rocket not designed by the students were the fins. They were designed by NASA and turned out to be too small for the rocket to be stable in flight.

Casper College Work

The students at NCSD and Casper College working on the project range from 9th grade to sophomore in college. They designed the propellant grain pattern to achieve the desired thrust and burn duration. The students designed all the parts and conducted thermal and structural analyses of the motor (shown left).They also manufactured all the rocket motor parts. In March 2003, the motor was successfully hydrotested to 1400 psi to ensure it was structurally sound and did not have any leaks. The parts were machined by high school and college students using the machine shop facilities of Casper College. The fin can slides over the base of the rocket motor and is held in place by the nozzle retaining ring bolts. Attached to the fin can are the three rocket fins.

The rocket motor was successfully test fired on May 17th, 2003 at Wickman Spacecraft & Propulsion Company facilities north of Casper, Wyoming. The motor reached a peak operating pressure of 550 psi and was slightly progressive. The burn time was approximately 12 seconds. The motor was designed to be reusable.The data acquisition system used in the static firing of the motor was the same one used in the flight test. It was designed and built by the students.

The Pathfinder rocket was assigned to NASA Wallops Launch Pad 2 and the ARC launcher. Students  assembled the rocket and rocket motor before it was transported to Pad 2 and attached to the launch rail. An environmental shelter enclosed the launch pad and the rocket so that students could check out the rocket on the pad in a protected environment.

Static Test of Motor

The static firing of the motor was held on a Saturday, May 17, 2003. Examination of  the thrust and chamber pressure data showed the test was successful. The motor did not experience any thermal or structural problems during the test. The thrust data indicated a delivered impulse of 18,728 lb-seconds (83,301 newton-seconds). This is about 92% of the theoretical impulse for this propellant formulation and motor design. The impulse of the motor was in the “Q” class range.

Students and instructors standing with the motor after the successful test firing

Launch at Wallops

A bag igniter was used for the igniting rocket motor. Located at the forward end of the motor it consisting of  propellant shavings to ignite the propellant surface as they dropped down the motor and out the nozzle.