Archimedes

Archimedes is the realization of Rice Eclipse’s long-term goal of competing in the 30,000 foot SRAD division of the Spaceport America Cup that took flight in 2024! Archimedes is completely designed and fabricated in-house by our Aerodynamics Team and powered by Titan II, our in-house developed hybrid rocket engine. This year, Archimedes reached an apogee of 26,000 ft and won First Place in the 30k SRAD division, making history for Rice Eclipse.

Recovery: Archimedes uses a dual-separation, dual deployment recovery system. A drogue parachute is deployed at apogee to slow the rocket before deploying a main parachute at 1000 ft. The 5 ft drogue is located between the payload bulkhead and lower avionics bulkhead, and the 14 ft main is between the upper avionics bulkhead and nose cone bulkhead. The drogue parachute will be deployed after the TeleMega in the avionics bay fires the e-match to set off the CO2 system and puncture the CO2 canister. At 1000 feet above the ground, the altimeters will fire the primary CO2 charge and backup black powder charge in the main parachute compartment to pressurize the chambers and shear four #6 nylon screws, allowing the main parachute to deploy.

Aerodynamics System: Archimedes is a hybrid rocket, flying a student research and development engine named Titan II. Archimedes has a fiberglass nose cone and upper body tube. Both compartments house an avionics bay, and the upper body tube houses the main and drogue parachutes. Connected to the upper body tube is a carbon fiber body tube that houses the payload and camera block. The payload body tube is epoxied and pinned to the engine extension which screws into the top of the ox tank. The ox tank is part of the outer diameter of the rocket and connects the payload body tube to the lower body tube. The lower body tube has four fins attached, houses the combustion chamber, and connects to the boat tail.

Payload: The purpose of the CubeSat payload is to record vibration and gyroscope data to be used for a custom-built rocket simulator device to allow anyone to experience what it’s like to fly from the perspective of Archimedes via vibration and visual stimulation. Our rocket simulator device (separate from the payload) consists of a subwoofer speaker enclosed in a box for a user to sit on. The purpose of the payload is to record vibration and gyroscope data to be used for the rocket simulator device.