Another Learning Experience

August, 2001 - Cambridge, MA

 The MIT Rocket Team continues its process of educating MIT students and affiliates in the myriad details of rocket design and testing. After six weeks of "cold" tests in the team's lab at MIT, the rocket team went to its test facility in Thornton, NH on July 20 to hot-fire test the team's second engine (design version 1.5). With nearly a dozen new members, test facility set-up and check-out was extremely efficient and fast, despite the fact that more than half of the team members helping out had never participated in a hot fire test before. Team co-founder Andrew Heafitz said, "We keep getting better and better at setting up and going through our checklists. This group gets more professional every time we come up here."

 Unfortunately, engine testing will have to wait until the team can rebuild the engine, because it was seriously damaged during testing. "We've moved beyond understanding single sub-systems, and are now facing the next level of learning and experience: systems integration" said Heafitz. The engine failed due not to any single cause, but to a related series of problems. Individually, none of them would have appeared to be a problem, but taken together they caused a small explosion during a test when there wasn't supposed to be any flammable kerosene introduced into the system. The team has done a thorough post-mortem on the engine as well as on the team's operational procedures, and is working on ratcheting up its skill level in order to better test the next engine.

 "The good thing is that we now understand the behavior of this engine better than ever before. We've even learned more about the first engine through our development and testing of this second engine" said the team's other co-founder, Carl Dietrich. "Plus, we've introduced 12 more students to the electronics, plumbing, and safety systems for this rocket engine. Those skills will be of use to them whatever they do in the future."

 Photos and video of the test should be posted on the team website in the near future. The web site can be found at http://web.mit.edu/cats/www/.