DARE Stratos V: Advancing Reusable Rocket Technology

Stratos V Eurocircuits Blogpost

Stratos V is the flagship project of Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering, a student association situated at Delft University of Technology. The enthusiastic student group working on this project aims to develop a reusable liquid bi-propellant launch vehicle, using ethanol and liquid oxygen as fuel and oxidizer.

After two years of development, the team is very proud of the direction the project is going in. For most systems, the preliminary designs are done, and the project is starting to enter the integration phase, where the different subsystems need to come together. This will require a combination of systems engineering and rigorous integration testing, to ensure proper function in the end.

Last year, the engine control unit (ECU) was the centre of attention. The ECU is responsible for precisely times operation of engine valves, to ensure correct operation. This part is mostly done now, but still need to be integrated into the rocket. The ECU is split into two parts, and integration requires a way for these to communicate. This is handled by the flight computer (FC).

The FC is the brain of the rocket, and handles communication between the different components of the avionics system. It acts as the primary coordinator, and gathers sensor information at a central location. Just like the ECU, the FC will be a stack of different PCBs, each with a different isolated task. The main control board is shown in the picture below, and on top of it the daughter PCBs (which still have to be manufactured) will be mounted. These daughter board include an actuation board to deploy a parachute, and a navigation board with motion sensors and a GNSS module.

Apart from the previously mentioned functions, the FC is also responsible for keeping a communication link between the rocket and a ground station. During flight, sensor data and a camera feed will be transmitted to a ground station over two separate communication links: a 2.4GHz link for the camera feed and a 869MHz link for the sensor data. Antennae for these links will be custom made, and will be positioned on the outside of the rocket’s aeroshell. To achieve this, a telemetry board will be added to the stack of PCBs of the FC. Version 1 of the telemetry board is displayed below. It serves as point of reference for future developments that will be focused on communication performance and miniaturization so it can be incorporated into the PCB stack.

Developing the telemetry system is one of the main challenges to overcome this year with the support of EuroCircuits. They have been our sponsor for 8+ years of the Stratos projects, which we are very grateful for, and hope our collaboration will continue to be fruitful.

For more information please visit the TU Delft – DARE Stratos V website.