
Aerospace Engineer
Stephen Hall


MY RESEARCH

Redesigning a Crawford Strand Burner
July 12, 2017 | Stephen Hall

In order to create a personal mix of solid rocket propellant, it is required to characterize the propellant to understand its capabilities and to safely predict how it will operate when cast into a full motor. The Crawford Strand Burner is a small pressure vessel which allows us to calculate the burn rate of small strips of propellant. The current Crawford Burner had a pressure leak and required a highly unintuitive testing procedure. Wanting to resolve these issues, allowing for the fastest and safest testing procedures, the Crawford Burner was redesigned.
Attitude Control System
July 12, 2017 | Stephen Hall
If any control is desired of a rocket in flight, it requires an attitude control system to spin and point it whatever way wanted. This idea has started a rather in depth project aimed at creating a perfectly vertical second stage separation for a maximum altitude competition and possibly a vertical landing of the first stage. Currently, the first main focus is to control and stop the spin of the rocket after launch. If the spin is contained, pitch and yaw can be performed, which will enable complete control. This project is still in progress.
Solid Rocket Propellant Research
July 12, 2017 | Stephen Hall

Wanting to further my understand in the way rockets operate, it is critical to understand their propulsion systems. As a result, I joined the Solid Rocket Propellant Research team within the Daedalus Astronautics team. Within this team, we have designed and mixed our own chemical compounds that make up the propellant. A few of these propellants have been characterized within the Crawford Stand Burner. Our goals for this year and to cast this propellant into small motors with out own propellant and eventually launch a rocket with a rocket motor I have designed and created.