Sirius Bipropellant Rocket Engine Project

Sirius Bipropellant Rocket Engine Project updated their phone number.

If you happen to be at the Farnborough International Airshow this week, stop by the Frazer Nash Manufacturing Ltd stand in hall 4.0 to see our rocket engine in person!

Just completed our presentation! Big smiles all around :)

Another quick post before we go into full study mode for finals next week. We have the 3D Printed Section at the university now! Next steps are assembly and testing (after exam period)

We would just like to take a moment to give everyone an update on our Rocket Engine. During this academic year, we have managed to design and build all the components for our rocket engine and hopefully, we will test during this summer break! Unfortunately, we are all masters aerospace students meaning that we have had numerous other commitments, especially recently with finals looming. We thank you very much for following our project thus far and we look forward to giving many more updates!
This would not have been possible without our team:
Karolina Zatorska, James Patterson, Chris Tacon, Chris Cockbain, Leon Aristou Ananthan Vivagandan, Cristian Rotundu and Mathieu Soulard. Special thanks to our supervisors Prof Tony Musker and Dr Charlie Ryan for their continued help, support and guidance over the duration of the project.

University of Southampton EDMC and Design Workshops. University of Southampton Engineering and the Environment - University of Southampton

Just finished off the assembly of all the supporting ground test rig. This holds the fuel and oxidizer and delivers it to the engine in a controlled way during testing. A big thank you to: RS Components, NERO Pipeline Connections Ltd., Designation Ltd. and Duncan Rogers (Engineering) Ltd. for making this possible.

Our Rocket Engine has been 3D printed!! Special thanks to Frazer Nash and Renishaw plc

Our project aims to design, build and test a working bipropellant 3D printed regeneratively cooled rocket engine.

A massive thank you to Designation for supplying us with hoses to connect the testing rig to engine!

A massive thank you to Rs-Components who supplied us with many of the parts we need to build the test rigging and engine. RS Components deliver a wide range of components, from tanks and fittings (like you see in the photo) to robotic components and 3D printing accessories.
Please visit their website to find out more: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/

The full assembly of our rocket engine! Most of the parts are currently being manufactured.

A massive thank you to NERO Pipeline Connections Ltd.

Huge thank-you to Righton, who have donated this pipe section to be the upper half of our engine! Just some welding and drilling to go - we'll keep you updated!

"A stockholder & distributor for over 100 years, Righton has established itself as the leading supplier of metals and plastics to industry.

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- Plastics: Acrylic, Foam PVC, Polycarbonate, PET-G, Composites & Engineering Plastics"

http://www.righton.co.uk/

Our final design is now in the queue to be metal 3D printed!

Our mini test rocket is prepped for firing! This little rocket is helping us test the catalyst which will be used in our final engine.

Well done to the SpaceX team on a completely successful Falcon Heavy launch!!!

It's been a while since we updated everyone on our progress! We are currently ensuring that all the numbers of our analysis and mathematical modeling match up before going ahead with printing. In addition to this, we have also started preparing the ground equipment, plumbing and electronics that we will use to test the engine.

Hopefully, we can bring some more exciting updates soon :)

Latest CAD rendering of the lower section of our rocket! Thanks to Mathieu (our CAD guy) for this!

It's time to meet the team behind this ambitious project!!

I’m Tony Musker; I’m the professor who founded Project Sirius. My main role is to supervise the students while they are working on this ambitious project. I also shadow much of the mathematical aspects of the work so that our modelling is harmonised.

Hi I’m Charlie Ryan, Lecturer in Astronautics at Southampton Uni, and second supervisor of the project designing the third stage. I sort out the testing of the PX2 catalyst, and try and resolve issues that might stop the project running smoothly

Hi! I’m Karolina! I’m the Team Leader which means it is my job to make sure the team is working together well and progressing through the objectives of our project! My technical responsibility is the test rig, which does not come into play until later in the project, so I have been busy supporting the heat transfer research and looking at different 3D printable materials.

I'm James! As project manager, I keep track of the deadlines we need to meet, and my areas of technical focus are the design of the fuel injectors, and flow simulations of the whole engine. I have also been overseeing all the 3D printing and preparing pitches for sponsorship and additional funding.

Hey there! I'm Chris Tacon and I am the project treasurer. From a technical standpoint, I mainly focus on the programming parts of the project. I have optimised the shape of the rocket and am now looking at the stresses in the rocket with Ananthan. Additionally, I oversee outreach and branding. I also help James with pitches, funding and sponsorship.

Hi! My name's Cristian and I'm the team's Secretary. From a technical aspect, I've been involved in computing a preliminary sizing of our rocket, using a tool developed by NASA called CEA (Chemical Equilibrium with Applications). Currently, Leon and I are both in charge of testing the catalyst used in the engine's decomposition chamber.

Hi! I'm Mathieu. I oversee the CAD model and the design of the geometry. These include making sure that the nozzle will fulfil the criteria that we have chosen and that the model can be manufactured using our method of choice which is 3D printing.

Hello there! I am Ananthan and I specialise in thermal and structural analysis using computer-aided engineering software like ANSYS and COMSOL. I conduct analysis to keep in check the design and material limitations and validate analytical results. This entails stressful (pun intended) stress analysis, temperature distribution and structural integrity to ensure the rocket (and the team) doesn’t have a meltdown.

Hi! I'm Chris Cockbain and my job is to ensure the engines regenerative cooling system works correctly. This has involved making heat transfer models using MATLAB. I have also been using a genetic algorithm to optimise the shape of the cooling channels and find the most effective design.

Hey, I’m Leon, I oversee Health and Safety proceedings for the group and along with Cristian, organise the PX2 monopropellant thruster experiment. This is an important test for us, as the results will be crucial in designing the decomposition chamber of the final engine. I have also produced data for preliminary rocket sizing using NASA’s CEA (Chemical Equilibrium Applications) software.

We have been using the computational fluid dynamics package Ansys to check the flow characteristics through our engine!