Atmospheric Probe Capsule

Atmospheric Probe

Structures Role

The Structures team role in the project will be to build the capsule that will house the tracking and scientific equipment, as well as provide a recovery system that will return the capsule and components safely back to the ground. For the capsule Structures will design and construct that will resemble an atmospheric probe, currently based on a 1/2 scale , may be smaller, Galileo probe model. The design of the capsule will be focused on achieving the same center of gravity of a real probe. The recovery system for the capsule will be a parachute system designed to slow the descent to around 5 m/s. In this system we will use a cross parachute for stability.

Design

JPLcapsulA1

Time line

*Complete construction as quickly as possible whiel maintaining quality
*Launch last weekend of september of first weekend of October

Budget

  • Spent : $453.28
    • Composite Order $273.17
    • General Construction $180.11
  • Remaining Projected
    • Parachute $385
    • General construction $50

Here is a link to a detailed spending list
Detailed Spending List

Testing

  • Material
    • Mostly complete, consisted of making several small test pieces
    • The intent was to make sure we knew how to use the composite material, and learn its behaviour
    • Resulted in going to more layers of Kevlar than originally estimated
  • Fastening
    • Testing the performance of fastened connections
    • We will be looking for the development of cracks, tears, or plastic deformation
    • A test connection will be loaded to 150% of maximum load, then unloaded and inspected
    • These test will begin Thursday march 5th and should be done in less than a week

bolted

  • Center of Mass
    • Will use pendulum motion formulas to test for the center of mass
      • Probe will be hung from a known length of string
      • Will be timed through one period
      • Length from top of probe to center of mass will be calculated
    • Will be conducted during System integration
      • Requires all systems installed in flight configuration
  • Antennae affect on stability
    • It was proposed to run the antennae up the parachute lines
    • We need to test if this will affect stability
    • test drop with dummy weight and antennae run up the lines