Skunkworks

The Liquid-Oxygen (LOX) Valve Team is working on upgrading the main liquid oxygen valve for future iterations of Halcyon. This semester, the team will take the design from last semester, machine and test the valve. Working from protytypes and through iterations, the goal for this team is to have a working valve by semester’s end.

The 3 DoF Reaction Control System (RCS) Team has created a self-stabilizing inverted pendulum featuring 3 degrees of freedom (DOF) and cold-gas thrusters. This semester, they will reconstruct and machine their design while working through the controls algorithm. As this team continues to research control algorithms and adjusts mechanical variables (weight, thrust, stiffness), they will document their research for publication.

The Propellant Measurement Team has manufactured and tested the first iteration of their system that records the fuel level in Halcyon’s propellant tank via differential pressure. This semester, the team will work to enhance the design’s reliability, precision, and accuracy by testing the system in a larger variety of conditions of temperature and vibration.

The Propellant Feedlines Team will design a feedlines and basin system to deliver propellant to a set of multiple engines at consistent pressure and rate from the propellant tank. This team will work to avoid vapor pull-through and mitigate water hammering in their design. By testing the geometry and mechanics of their structure, applying and learning knowledge of fluids, this team will finish a fully functioning feedlines system this semester.

The Capsule Team will construct a capsule capable and prepared for space environments that will support the transport of future payloads. This team will prioritize the prototyping and research of certain designs to inform future semesters’ work on TREL’s capsule system. The team will consider the capsule’s recovery, payload capacity, Addage Control Systems (ACS) and Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS). The goal for this team is to prototype a model capsule and evaluate those additions for later development.

The new liquid nitrogen (LN2) Vaporizer Team will design a reliable LN2 vaporizer in order to accommodate the high quantity of gaseous nitrogen required by other TREL teams. This semester, the team will investigate the performance of various heating sources, frost mitigation, flow regulation, applying and learning thermodynamics and fluids to create a fully-functioning vaporizer.