Project Apeiron III

Students for Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is a non-profit international, student-led organization that strives to promote space advocacy and development. SEDS BPHC, a chapter under this esteemed organization, is the rocketry and aerospace club of BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, established in April 2019.

We participate in two major international competitions:

1. The Spaceport America Cup (SA Cup)

2. The Cansat Competition

We are also building cube satellites which are small, highly sophisticated satellites with many applications like communication, earth observation, and defense. We are looking to launch two satellites, NEMOlite strong>NEMO, in 2023 and 2025, respectively. Our R&D division, Archangel, works on ambitious projects like solid rocket propulsion, air brakes, and thrust vector control.

The Spaceport America Cup is designed around IREC (Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition) for student rocketry teams from all over the world, in New Mexico, USA. With over 153 teams from colleges and universities in twenty-five countries, 2021 was the competition’s biggest year yet.

We have qualified this year in the 10,000 feet category wherein we will be building an 8- feet tall rocket and launching it to reach an apogee of 10k feet at the event in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After months of planning, designing, and simulating, and contributions from students of various disciplines, we came up with Project Apeiron III. A triple redundancy system set-up was implemented using multiple software (viz. OpenRocket, RockSim, and MATLAB) for all the flight data used in our application. We are the only BITSian team strong>one of the only six Indian teams out of 150+ teams to have qualified for the competition in 2022.

Currently, we are in the process of manufacturing the rocket and running simulations.

We require your sponsored assistance in getting our PCB and CNC milled parts manufactured for the rocket.

The details of which are as follows:

The PCB is the SRAD (Student Researched and Developed) flight computer for our Rocket. The PCB mainly consists of a teensy 4, an MPU 6050, a BMP 280, an EEPROM, a Buzzer, and MOSFETs and BJTs. It is capable of launch detection, data logging, and assists in the recovery of the rocket. It can log barometric and acceleration data to an EEPROM and deploy the ejection charges. The flight code is stored and executed on a teensy 4.0 and is written in C++. The connections to the batteries, the ejection charges, and other electronics will be done using barrier connectors. The PCB has 4 through holes, one on each corner, used in conjunction with screws to hold the PCB in place. The team has designed the SRAD PCB to focus on a small footprint. We have attached a screenshot of the blueprint below.

We will be using CNC milled parts for our airbrake structures, specifically fins and holding structures. 

Fins deploy at a certain altitude (determined by probabilistic models) to impede the rocket motion and achieve the target more accurately.

Holding structures clamp down the fins and prevent them from being over deployed.

We are opting for CNC milling for these parts due to the complexity of the structure needed and the lack of facilities. The complexity of some parts can be reduced but not to great lengths; therefore, CNC milling remains the best option.