From October 2017 - April 2018 I was a member of a subset of Florida Tech's Student Rocket Society competing in NASA's Student Launch Initiative. The competition is partially scored by how close the rocket's apogee is to one mile. The team decided to accomplish this precision with a set of airbrakes. I was assigned to the group of four students responsible for designing that system.

The rocket would be initially launched on a trajectory that would exceed the targeted apogee. The airbrake system, shown above, would use four aerodynamic surfaces to slow the rocket. All four surfaces would be actuated in unison by a single jack screw driven by a NEMA stepper motor, allowing dynamic positioning of the airbrakes.

The system also included a dedicated avionics system that would predict the rocket's trajectory. This prediction would feed into a control loop and determine the necessary position of the airbrakes. Since the four surfaces would be actuated in unison, the system could only be used as a braking system and not steering.

As the designs of the other systems evolved, the rocket exceeded the allowable weight and the airbrake system was removed to save weight. With my system eliminated from the rocket I was reassigned to the design of the overall assembly, shown below.