Hello Everyone!

We had our Preliminary Design Report Presentation with NASA last night, and it was a blast! We had donuts after to celebrate. For today, we plan to build our subscale rocket so that we can launch it tomorrow afternoon. We've 3D printed our fairings, our shipment of Apogee Rockets components came in today, and of course we made a quick trip to the hardware store! Time to do some sanding, epoxying, painting, aaaaaand some more stuff. Wish us luck! You can check out our donut celebration below. We look good.

More cool videos and pictures to follow from tomorrow's launch!

~UMass Rocket

After quite a number of late nights, our Preliminary Design Review (PDR) has been submitted and is now on our website. You can find it and other team info at http://www.umassrocket.com/. The PDR will be reviewed by NASA in the next week. Following that, we have a PDR presentation with our NASA reps Thursday, 11/19. They will help us refine our design. Wish us luck!

Next, we have already started the process of getting our subscale launch ready. Lots of testing to be done to ensure our rocket will knock your socks off. It will have a pretty big motor, so it's plausible. In fact, if we put one of your socks on the end of the rocket and we let that thing fly, I could guarantee that the sock would fly off. But I digress...

Anyway, we can't wait to get this thing going! Soon enough, the Critical Design Review (CDR) will be moving forward as well.

In case you were wondering how big our rocket is this year, here's an image to give you an idea.

Thanks for checking in!

-UMass Rocket

First, we would like to thank you all for your awesome contributions to the project thus far. We have reached 50% of our goal. In the words of Bon Jovi: https://youtu.be/lDK9QqIzhwk?t=92. This is an incredible place to be, given our timeline. Thank you, thank you, and once again thank you! We are so fortunate to have benefactors like you.

As for our project progress, we have a PDR (Preliminary Design Review) due next week! We are working hard at finishing up this part of the project. We're beginning to wrap up our ideas for design and put them on paper. Our CAD (Computer-Aided Design) of the rocket is being made as I write, and we will hopefully have an assembled CAD model by Friday at the latest.

The team held a table at Homecoming at the launch of the Minute Fund. We got to show off last year's rocket. and our smiling faces of course! Our team lead, Pavel, got a little confused as to which team he was on so he started to march with the band. Take a look.

When we wrap up our PDR, we hope to show you what we've written on the umassrocket.com website. In the meantime, keep a look out for us there and tell your friends about us! Who knows, maybe they can help us reach our goal well before the deadline?

Best,

UMass Rocket