Picture Index

In late 2004, AERO-PAC, decided to do another group project. (Our previous group project was the Moon Race 2001 for LDRS XX.) Eventually, we decided to do a rocket that would use all of the waiver we have for the launches at Black Rock desert.

The airframe team held build sessions all through the first part of 2005, busily working to build two complete rockets for the three summer flights. This site contains pictures from those build sessions.

1		January 9:  First Tube Our first order of business was to make the tubes for the booster. We had a big turnout and there was lots of excitement about getting started.
2		January 16:  Another Approach In an attempt to remedy the problems with our first tube, we made a shorter sample tube.
3		January 23:  Second Tube We decided to make the second attempt at a booster tube, this time using what we'd learned in the process. We produced our first usable tube!
4		January 30:  Yet More Tubes Now that we had the tube technique down, we proceded to make more tubes. We created the second booster airframe tube, and a fiberglass-only section of booster airframe.
5		February 20:  Final Tubes Now that we had the airframe tubes done, we just had to build a few smaller tubes for the interstage.
6		February 27:  First Construction Three groups worked on different parts: making the final sustainer socket tube, cutting the tubes we'd already made to length and building the interstage.
7		April 2:  Making Parts We worked on components, including the nose cone mold, interstage pieces, couplers and ARLISS cansat carriers.
8		April 10:  Nose Cone & Interstages The main work at this session was making the mold for the custom nose cone.
9		April 23:  Making Molded Parts We made a the first nose cone and interstage shroud from the two molds.
10		May 7:  Second Molding We made the second nose cone and interstage parts from the molds and started working on the sustainer airframe.
11		May 14:  Interstage & Sustainer We fitted the interstage shrouds to the bodies, started bonding the first sustainer fins and started building the forward end of the sustainers.
12		May 21:  Airframe Continuation We cut the booster tubes to final length, fitted the interstage couplers, started reinforcement of the sustainer fins and continued building the sustainers.
13		May 22:  Sustainer Completion We cut the rest of the sustainer parts out and drilled the holes for bolting and continued tip-to-tip reinforcement of the sustainer fins.
14		May 25:  Booster Fins we cut the booster fins from the honeycomb plate and installed the first one on each booster. Also, we completed the last tip-to-tip reinforcement of the sustainers.
15		May 28:  Airframe Complete We reinforced the booster fins tip-to-tip, completed the construction of the interstages and finished the cansat carrier.
16		June 6 & 7:  Electronics Assembly At Steve's shop in Petaluma, The booster and sustainer electronics were assembled and fitted and antennas were built.
17		June 11 & 12:  A Final Flurry At the final session before Mudroc, we got the airframe complete.
18		July 2:  Some Finish Work we finished a few remaining tasks on the aiframe, getting it ready for painting.
19		July 16:  Test Fit Recovery we finished a few remaining tasks on the sustainer and test fit the recovery system. Airframe #1 is ready to fly at Aeronaut!