UCLA Rocket News Volume 1, Number 5 July 9, 1992 Contents ----------------------- From the Editor Spartan Status Altitude Project Status Just for Fun... ----------------------- From the Editor ----------------------- Gads! A lot is happening right now. So much, in fact, that it is impossible to try and capture it all here. The fact that the last Rocket News was over four weeks ago doesn't help, of course, so maybe I should be getting these out more often to keep my backlog of events down. Probably the most important thing that this RN will not capture is the enthusiasm that I and all the other participants have for both the Spartan and Altitude projects. All I can suggest is that you try to read between the lines. ----------------------- Spartan Status ----------------------- On Friday, June 26, the first public news release about the Spartans and UCLA's involvement was made by Bill Andrews of the School of Engineering's Press and Public Relations. An article appeared the next day in the Santa Monica Outlook and Jeff Fischer reported hearing about it Sunday on KFI while he drove up here from San Diego. Paul Coleman and I went down to TRW on Wednesday, June 24. Dave Hinkley, Chief Scientist for TRW's Global Change Program, invited us down to give a presentation of the possibilities of the Spartan as a launch vehicle and how a UCLA program might contribute to lowering launch costs. We discussed the potential applicability of missions involving very small spacecraft. One area that NASA has investigated is the use of passive instruments on dedicated spacecraft to avoid the problems of interference caused by the plethora of instruments on larger spacecraft. Also, small spacecraft have less mass which must be controlled for station-keeping or maintaining a network configuration; a large constellation of such craft could implement a distributed phased array. We ended the meeting on the recurring theme: what is our projected budget and what is our time table? Many of the TRW folks seemed enthusiastic and would like to help; they simply need to know what we need next. On Thursday, June 25, I spoke about the Spartans at JPL. A number of middle managers were present as well as Dave Rennels from UCLA's Computer Science Department. The reception was mixed but the strongest feeling seemed to be that they are most interested in seeing new graduates who are better prepared for jobs and, in particular, more students who have been exposed to real projects and project management. There was some skepticism about the Spartans really amounting to much but, as Paul Robinson said, "It might be like some junk that Grandma gives you; it may or may not be the beginning of a new industry but, at the very least, you will learn a lot." Paul volunteered to identify payloads at JPL which are languishing for want of a ride. He knows that there are experiments at JPL which are simply gathering dust and he feels that, for some of them, it would be better to take the chance of a loss due to launch failure than to continue letting sit on shelves. The biggest concern of the attendees was the lack of a space infrastructure at UCLA; we have little institutional knowledge about rockets or spacecraft and there is a lack of continuity caused by student turnover. Again, the issue was raised about actual launch facilities and operations costs. (But read on...) Later that afternoon, Paul Coleman, Vassilis Angelopoulos, and I were interviewed at the Voice of America studios in the West LA Federal Building. It was an interesting experience to know that we were potentially talking to people for whom English is a second or third language and who are certainly not engineers or scientists. We spent about 40 minutes there and if, after trimming it down to a sub-five minute clip, it makes it on the air, we will get a transcript. The most recent news comes as result of our excursion to Vandenburg AFB (see below). There is currently an effort to create a spaceport at Vandenburg and for the area to be designated by the State of California as an "enterprise zone" (which has lower tax rates for budding businesses). I spoke with Don Smith at the non-profit Western Commercial Space Center (WCSC) in Lompoc. He had heard of Paul Coleman and the Spartans through a contact in Santa Monica. Their current efforts focus on Motorola's proposed Iridium communications system and on the potential for support of educational activities. They are advocating a "clean pad" concept; a potential launch-service provider would request spaceport access and be given a plot of land to improve as needed. This is perfect for Spartans as our "pad" consists of little more than a hunk of concrete with a rail attachment. Don said that when Amroc needed to use VAFB, they were quoted $100K for Air Force personnel and facilities for their launch. (He also noted that through their own mismanagement, the actual bill from the Air Force was $600K. Example: ordering a shipment of LOX and then letting the truck sit there for a week is a poor use of resources.) He feels that the actual costs for Spartans should be under $100K, as little as half that if all that is required is Air Force manpower. This is quite a bit cheaper than the "it costs $2 million just to get onto Vandenburg" that some people have told me. ----------------------- Altitude Project Status ----------------------- On Saturday June 13, John Griswold, Scott Hampton, Daniel Limonadi, Dan Silverman, Steve Tsang, Jason Wolven, and I went to Lake Lucerne for Summerfest. We took only our previously-constructed Aerotech kits and intended for this to be an educational experience. The educational part was satisfied but the Lucerne winds kicked up earlier than usual and we were unable to fly anything. Jason became a Tripoli member and was going to fly a confirmation flight but the winds precluded that. Better luck next time. The advent of summer has brought the ability for many people to devote significant amounts of time to the project. Tower and airframe construction efforts proceed in earnest at Harvey Mudd under the direction of Shop-God Scott Hampton. Scott was a professional machinist before going to Mudd and now he runs the student shops out there. Being very interested in rockets, he jumped at the opportunity to participate when he heard about the project in January. Each weekend during the summer, three or four members of our group will go out to Claremont to be instructed and supervised by Scott. Two weeks ago, work started on the launch tower which will be a highly- modified 18-foot chunk of discarded amateur radio antenna mast that Scott found. It will have a guide rail attached, electrical harnesses, guy wire attach points, and a trailer mount for transportation. John Griswold, Mark Mitchell, Chris Robson, and Korhan Terbin fabricated the pieces of the tower and now it simply needs to be welded together. Last weekend, John, Daniel, and Fritz Wang worked both days. Rather than driving to Claremont twice, they stayed for Fourth of July festivities and spent the night out there. Most of that weekend was spent building fixtures so that all the parts which need to mate will do so. Actual airframe parts manufacturing will commence this coming weekend. ----------------------- Just for Fun... ----------------------- Paul Coleman called Lee Huffman at Teledyne Brown around June 22 about the Spartans and, in passing, Lee mentioned that he had some information from an unnamed source at Thiokol, Huntsville, that they had about 70 surplus motors. These motors are new surplus; they are a few percent under customer spec and were rejected. The motors burn for 2.8 seconds with 6000 lb thrust. They are 6.5 inch diameter, 5 feet long, and weigh about 105 pounds. Thiokol wants $4000 or $5000 each. Two- and three-stage configurations of these would make a wonderful student project. The primary limitation right now is that Lee wishes to remain the middleman (he explicitly said so) and will not divulge the name of the Thiokol contact. He felt that students could have complete freedom with the payload and "some involvement" in the actual vehicle design. This seems like a great opportunity for the next "hands on" project. Last week, we had the opportunity to see a real Scout launch at Vandenburg. The SAMPEX (Solar Anomaly and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer) spacecraft was launched atop one of the last Scout G-1 rockets at 7:19 AM, Friday, July 3. Although we were there, it is perhaps incorrect to say that we had the opportunity to see it; dense fog shrouded the entire area and we saw no more than a grey blanket. The terminal countdown was carried over the loudspeaker system and after "5..4..3..2..1..Ignition..We have liftoff.." we could only laugh; being 2.5 miles away from the pad, our senses could not tell us that anything had actually happened! Another 12 seconds or so elapsed before we actually heard the low rumble of the rocket leaving the pad. Ah, well, maybe this is an indication from the powers-that-be that, if we want to see the launch of a large rocket, we will simply have to do it ourselves. All was not lost, though; we met and were interviewed by Nora Wallace, the Santa Barbara News Press reporter who wrote the first SAMPEX/Scout article which alerted me to the launch. During the 20 minute interview, she mentioned the efforts which were on-going to create a commercial spaceport at Vandenburg (as described above) and gave me Don Smith's phone number. She also said that there will be an Atlas launch in September and that we might be able to see that one. Stay tuned... ------------------------ Summer Meeting Schedule ------------------------ Wednesdays, 7 PM, Engineering 4, Room 47-124. Most Weekend Days, Machining at Harvey Mudd College. ----------------------- "UCLA Rocket News" is distributed sporadically to attempt to keep interested parties informed of the activities in the UCLA Space/Rocketry arena. Subscriptions (free) and back issues (free) may be obtained by contacting the editor. Comments, contributions, suggestions, and corrections are invited. Editor: Doug Caldwell, doug@cs.ucla.edu, (310) 815 0926.