Active Aerobrake System

As part of the 2022-23 NASA SLI Challenge, I led a team to build an Active Aerobrake System. The goal of this system was to bring the rocket to a previously set apogee. The system had a few parts: First, it continuously predicted the apogee, using current height, velocity, and acceleration data to do so. Then, if the rocket was overshooting the apogee, it would deploy three fins to increase the rocket’s drag. This was tested and refined, and we successfully deployed the airbrake system at the NASA SLI Launch in Huntsville.

Designing and Testing the Fins

We designed the fins and fin deployment method in Fusion 360. The contraption for the fins includes holes for wires and holes for the rods to go through so we could mount it on the rocket. Images of the CAD model are below:

The contraption for the fins

After designing the system on Fusion 360, we went through multiple iterations of printing and refining the system to make it work flawlessly. Videos of the fins deploying and retracting both outside and inside the body tube during testing is below:

Actively Predicting the Rocket’s Apogee

The fins were controlled by a motor that was controlled by an Arduino. The Arduino took data from an IMU to calculate the apogee in real time. We used a Kalman Filter to filter the data, and used simple physics to predict the apogee.

Results

We were really happy with the results of our project. Though it didn’t work exactly as we’d hoped. It got a lot closer to the apogee we wanted compared to without it. Additionally, we won the NASA Payload Design Award for our effort.