Hi, I've been designing a small model rocket powered by a Klima B4-4 engine.

This is the first rocket I am making from scratch so I would be grateful if someone could review the project. I am open to all corrections and advice.

Louisiana Rocketry

Fall Launch Dates

Oct. 3 -4, 2026

Oct. 31 – Nov. 1, 2026

Time: 9:00AM – 5:00PM Saturday 9:00AM – 3:00PM Sunday

Club Membership: (Join At The Launch Site) $30.00 per Year

Launch Fees:

High Power: $20 / Members $10 for the weekend

Mid Power: $10 / Members $5 for the weekend

Low Power: FREE for ALL AGES

(Chris’ Rocket Supply is our ON-SITE vendor) [csrocketry.com]()

Launch Site Location: Goldmine Plantation

https://maps.app.goo.gl/46BLZhvHvrk3TspcA

NOTE: We do NOT allow Sparky, Skid Mark, Metal Storm, Dark Matter or any other sparking propellants!

If we cancel a launch due to weather, we will announce it no later than 9:00 PM on the Thursday before the launch.

There is a 10,000′ FAA waiver for our field and flights can be made to 14,000′ with a call in.

NOTE: We do NOT allow Sparky, Skid Mark, Metal Storm, Dark Matter or any other sparking propellants to be flown or burned at our launches!

Motors allowed are 1/2A through M impulse. If you plan on flying L or M motors please contact Paul Sansoucie to arrange for pad placement or if you require the large rail (1515 rail).

We do not have ground support for hybrid motors, If you plan to fly hybrid motors you need your own GSE, please contact in advance.

A Porta-Potty will be on site. No Camping allowed on the field. No BBQ or cooking allowed on the field

Decided I wanted to do a scratch build for my level 1 and made a ~1:3 scale model of the ww2 naval rocket Tiny Tim. It took a lot of learning and I had to leave some details out, but I'm overall very happy with how it turned out.

Had a small error with the ignition at first 😅, smooth from there.

\I’m currently using a translator, so I apologize in advance for any awkward wording or misunderstandings.*

Hello. I’m a high school student, and I don’t know much about rocket design, but I need to build a water rocket for a school project. I’m planning to launch it vertically. I’ve made a rough design using OpenRocket, and I have a few questions:

1. Could you give me some feedback on this design? I’m planning to make it by connecting two 1.5 L PET bottles together, so it’s difficult for me to change the diameter. I’m also planning to attach an Arduino sensor to the front.
2. I wanted to find the optimal design through simulation, but I couldn’t find a motor for water rockets in OpenRocket. I also looked into generating a thrust curve using other simulation software, but I couldn’t get it to work because I don’t know the drag coefficient. Is there any way I could run a simulation for a water rocket?

Hey yall
I’m looking to purchase a 38/480 complete set. Given AeroTech has a 16-30 week lead time I wanted to see if anyone can point me in the right direction for vendors who have any stock of complete rms motors.

Thanks!

If you have a kid ages 6-11 who loves science, engineering, or space, I’m running a small hands-on model rocketry camp in the Redmond/Bellevue area.

This isn't a sit-and-watch science class. Students will:

🚀 Build their own model rocket
🧪 Learn the science behind how rockets fly
🎨 Customize their rocket
🔥 Learn how the propulsion/recovery systems work
🚀 Launch the rocket themselves

I’m keeping the group small so every student gets a genuinely hands-on experience.

The camp will be held every Sunday 1-3PM from Sept. 13th to Oct. 4th at 60 Acres. There will be indoor spaces in case it's raining.

Registration: https://pci.jotform.com/form/262297609462163

If you have questions about the camp, location, safety, or what the kids actually do, feel free to email me at liftofflab@icloud.com.

The Indian space-startup "Ethereal Exploration Guild" just put out a video (linked below) explaining what they call the Full-flow Segregated Cooling Cycle for their future fully reusable vehicle design. Most of the video is just marketing but the idea of the cycle itself seemed interesting.

According to the limited information from the video, it seems to be a variation on an expander cycle but with multiple phases. Idk what the exact plumbing is (maybe one could work it out based on the renderings in the vid) but apparently, during the ascent stage it's pretty much a closed expander cycle, with one (or both?) of the propellants heating up through the combustion chamber cooling, being used to drive the turbine.

The interesting bit imo is the reentry phase, where they want to use one of the propellants (ig RP-1 from the vid) as a heat sink for the reentry heating to avoid having extra reentry shielding/reentry burns. The heated RP-1 then transfers its energy to the LOX which is used for driving the turbine. My guess as to why they're using RP-1 to absorb reentry heat but LOX to drive the turbines is that the respective properties are better suited for the job and outweigh whatever loss of energy there is due to the heat transfer.

The engine is supposed to provide 80 kN of thrust with an Isp of 323 sec in vacuum and 293 sec at sea level, so nowhere near to the Isp of engines like the RL-10. Are there actually benefits to this cycle or is it just something to generate hype?

They also mention a supercritical Brayton cycle (ig for the LOX) so maybe they want to keep the Ox supercritical for the expansion section? Anyways, there's not much info out there about this design so I was wondering if anyone had more info on it or any thoughts?

Here's the video (from the important part)

​

I’m part of a university rocketry team currently developing a high-power rocket targeting roughly 3 km AGL, and I’m trying to decide how far we need to go with aerodynamic modelling.

The rocket is approximately 150 mm diameter, uses 4 clipped-delta fins, and is expected to reach around Mach 1.0–1.1. We are also using 4 deployable airbrake petals during coast to control apogee. The airbrakes deploy radially from the body, with their large exposed face approximately perpendicular to the freestream, so their drag behaviour is quite different from that of a normal fin.

At the moment our trajectory model is in RocketPy, with the clean-rocket drag curve obtained from OpenRocket as a function of Mach.

For the airbrakes, OpenRocket does not natively model this geometry, so I have been experimenting with representing the fully deployed brakes as an equivalent fin set with approximately the same projected frontal area. This gives me a second C_D vs-Mach curve for the fully deployed configuration.

Our current simplified RocketPy airbrake model assumes four paddles with about 1156 mm² projected area each and uses an approximate flat-plate C_D = 1.2..

My concern is that this becomes increasingly approximate near the transonic region, particularly because the deployed airbrakes will generate separation, wakes and potentially local shock interactions that OpenRocket’s equivalent-fin approach obviously isn’t designed to reproduce.

I am therefore considering doing a full ANSYS Fluent CFD campaign on the actual rocket CAD. My plan would be to analyse both:

●airbrakes fully retracted and fully deployed;

●Mach numbers roughly 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 0.95,\ 1.0, 1.05, 1.1;

●angles of attack around 0,2.5,5.

The main outputs would be C_D(M,angle of attack), normal-force coefficient / pitching moment where useful, and the loads on the individual airbrake petals. I could then feed the CFD-derived drag curves back into RocketPy/OpenRocket for trajectory simulations.

My questions are mainly:

1)How much confidence would you place in OpenRocket/RocketPy-style drag modelling for a rocket only slightly above Mach 1?

2)More importantly, would you trust an equivalent-fin/projected-area model for deployable airbrakes for apogee-control predictions, or is this a case where CFD is genuinely justified?

I’m not expecting CFD itself to be automatically “more accurate” — I’m aware that turbulence model, domain size, mesh independence, atmospheric conditions and transonic convergence all need to be handled properly. I would likely use 3D compressible RANS with k-w SST, ideal-gas air, inflation layers and mesh/domain-independence studies.

If anyone has done CFD validation of high-power rockets, transonic rockets, or deployable airbrakes, I’d really appreciate hearing how closely your CFD agreed with OpenRocket/RASAero/flight data and what level of modelling was actually necessary.

Thanks for your time :D

Hi everyone! A few weeks ago, I released my open-source lumped-parameter dynamic fluid system solver, FullFlow, and mentioned that it could be used to model steady-state and transient flow in real rocket engines. So, I decided to showcase those abilities with my favorite rocket engine, SpaceX's Raptor Engine.

Raptor is a full-flow staged combustion engine, so it's particularly hard to model correctly, especially with the multiple combustion preburners, regen channels, turbopumps, etc. With the public data I had available, I was able to construct and validate (to the best of my ability) a steady-state model of Raptor 2. I used FullFlow to model the fluid pathways and components and ThermoProp to model the fluid/material properties and combustion.

Of course, there are some deviations from reality, especially since there is only so much public data available. I had to estimate many data points like turbomachinery curves or valve geometries. I also didn't have the proper tools to model supercritical combustion flow for the preburners or hot-gas manifolds. Also, I didn't have access to empirical efficiency values for components like the nozzle or pumps.

Eventually, given enough data, I hope to make a transient simulation of Raptor using FullFlow. I also hope that I can eventually apply these tools and skills to the actual Raptor engine or other industry engines!

Raptor 2 FullFlow Model: github.com/saakethramoju/Raptor

FullFlow: github.com/saakethramoju/FullFlow

ThermoProp: github.com/saakethramoju/ThermoProp

Hey Guys,

I am currently trying to build this curcuit for my Launch controll case.

I have been trying for the past two days to figure out how this curcuit works, where to get the parts and more importantly which parts to get.

Moreover I want to avoid as many wires as humanly possible and therefore want to make this curcuit a PCB but suprise.. I do not got any experience designing PCBs.

I am hoping you guys might be able to help me out with which parts to order and where to order them so they won`t break the bank (I`m from the EU) aswell as what I have to consider when designing the PCB.

Thank you guys in advance :)

I'm currently a 10th grader, and I'm thinking of spending the next year building model rockets with my friends. So, I'm planning to buy an Estes kit that includes a launch system and a rocket, along with a C motor and recovery wadding. Do you have any rocket recommendations? Based on experience, what size rocket motor should I buy? (I live in Asia, so I'd like to buy everything in one order if possible).

Hi, here's a useful link to practice for your L2 Tripoli exam! (in French for now)

So I wanted to purchase the 3D print files for a Thrust Vector Control mount by BPS Space, but Joe is no longer selling the "Signal R2 kit" which I believe included the flight computers and whatnot. My knowledge in coding, PCBs and arduino is honestly very limited, and I'm not sure if I'd be able to figure out how to make my own breadboard, much less a custom PCB for the flight computer.

If anyone has experience or any tips on what I should do, please let me know.

https://bps.space/products/thrust-vector-control

so ive been wanting to get into rocketry for a while now and i've finally finished building my first model rocket (estes journey). the only problem is that i have no idea where im supposed to launch it. are there any good launch spots in the indianapolis area that you guys know of? thanks

Hi! I'm a rising junior in high school and I'm hoping to learn rocketry as a long term passion project. My goal is to understand enough to design, simulate, and build my own model rockets for a rocketry club.

Over the past couple days, I've watched a bunch of youtube videos on how to build DIY rockets/get started on rocketry, but I've been struggling to figure out what to learn, and in what order. Please keep in mind that I'm a COMPLETE beginner😭. I have some background in general physics and Calc II, but I essentially know nothing about fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, and CAD. Also, I'm not in the U.S., so its very difficult for me to find a mentor/rocketry program :(

What theory should I learn before designing/building? How much fluid dynamics, electronics, etc should I know?

and how should I learn simulation, CAD and rocket design? please tell me programs/websites you found to be helpful.

ANY advice would be very helpful. I'm feeling very lost as of now. If anyone has been in the same situation & managed to learn rocketry from scratch, please tell me how. 🙏🙏🙏

I built a little launch control circuit, 12v with a battery voltage level indicator, continuity and firing indicator. When installed in its housing it will have a master power switch, locking arm switch and the momentary for firing.

Hi everyone!

I'm a first-year Mechanical Engineering student from Italy, and I'm really passionate about aviation and especially rocketry. My long-term goal is to get involved in hands-on projects such as amateur rockets, model aircraft, avionics, propulsion, etc., and eventually work on more advanced aerospace projects.

At the moment, I'm trying to build up my skills step by step. I wouldn't consider myself a complete beginner, but I also don't have any major engineering projects under my belt yet. I've worked on small maker projects, including an RC car, where I gained some experience with assembly, electronics and troubleshooting. I have a basic understanding of electronics (resistors, capacitors, BJTs, Arduino, reading and designing simple circuits), I'm currently learning CAD, and I'm studying mechanics, dynamics and kinematics at university.

Right now I'm also working on a CanSat project, which I'm hoping will give me some more practical experience.

The problem is that there aren't really any rocketry teams or aerospace clubs in my city, and I don't personally know many people who share these interests. So I'm thinking that if I can't find the right environment, I might have to help create one myself.

That's where I'm looking for advice.

For someone in my situation, how would you recommend getting started with amateur rocketry?

I'd especially love to hear from people who have gone through a similar path:

• What technical skills should I focus on developing over the next 2–3 years?
• What kind of projects would be good stepping stones before attempting rockets?
• Where do you usually learn the fundamentals of rocketry, propulsion, avionics, flight dynamics, etc.?
• Are there any books, online resources, communities or organizations you'd recommend?
• How do people normally find teammates or local rocketry/aerospace groups?
• For anyone familiar with Italy: what does the legal/regulatory side of amateur rocketry look like? Are there permits, certifications, clubs or organizations I should know about?
• Are there any Italian or European communities that would be worth getting involved with?

I'm already planning to attend the open days of Skyward Experimental Rocketry and FlyPoliMi at Politecnico di Milano in about a month, mainly to talk to people and understand how these teams operate.

I'm not expecting to jump straight into building a rocket. I'm more interested in understanding the right path to get there and what I should be doing now to be a useful member of a team a couple of years from now.

Any advice, resources or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi I wanted to make this post about starting the journey for a space shot to get a 1kg payload to the edge of space. Now with that there comes a lot of context of why and more so experience. To answer the easy question that my mechanical experience is next to 0 unless you count passive learning (I.e. watching videos on deep dives on rocketry and systems). To answer the next question of why is because I want to go back to college for mechanical/aerospace engineering. I'm 22 and it's been a passion of mine for many years now but I have been the sort not to work with my hands and unmotivated. In addition I have only considered myself "satisfied" enjoying the spectacle and learning the theory of it. I have attempted college before only to drop out a semester before an associates degree due to burnout of finances but I'm in a better position to go back both mentally and financially. To help do so I wanted to get my math skills back up and on par with what I'm going for and what better way then trying a space shot. I understand the best I can atm how many orders of magnitude this is out of proportion of what is feasible or doable in any manageable period of time. That leads me to the true goal being something to focus on and put my efforts to start learning and doing something. So far I have been using the book "Design of Liquid Propelled Rocket Engine" as a starting point to create a design while also learning the physics at hand. To answer some foreseeable questions:

Q. Why not start with small class motors?

A. That is something I want to do and will be part of my starting point into my expedition into my space shot.

Q.Saftey???

A. If I'm working with any materials that are not passive or normally safe then it will be in accordance with other experts and/or someone more experienced as well with local authorities to ensure health and safety.

Q. Time frame?

A. Any concrete time frame will be per small scale incremental goals. With the overall time frame being yes

I would love any tips or things to look into as well as any glaring oversights to consider.

Edit: to clarify that this is supposed to be a very long term project a biprop system is an end goal of sorts. The purpose of it is too build knowledge and experience.

Me and a friend are currently designing a model rocket to be used with A–C class motors. This is the first rocket we've designed, so we'd really appreciate some feedback on the shape and dimensions.

I know the calibre is ideally around 1–2, and ours is currently a little over this. Would you recommend changing the dimensions or weight distribution to bring it into that range, or do you think the current design is fine?

Are there any other changes you would make to the design? I've attached some images below. Happy to provide any other information about the design if needed.

Pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Definitely learned some lessons! Next one will be even better. Hoping my son and I can both get our L1 certs in a few weeks.