Long Beach Rocketry competed in NASA’s University Student Launch Initiative annually where the team was challenged to design, build, and fly a reusable rocket. I joined Long Beach Rocketry my first year and was immediately drawn to the payload and recovery subsystems. While on the payload team, I assisted in trade studies and designing of the payloads (rover and UAV) in SolidWorks. I successfully helped design and assemble a UAV that could withstand vehicle launch and recovery, deploy remotely from the payload bay, fly to a designated tarp, and deliver a beacon on a tarp. The team’s payload design won fourth place overall in 2018.
While stepping up to help the team’s recovery lead, I helped perform stress analysis on rocket components using SolidWorks and calculations for launch vehicle and recovery using MATLAB and OpenRocket. Additionally, I assembled and prepared the recovery system multiple times for pop tests and launch. Furthermore, I substantially contributed to technical reports turned in to NASA and briefed portions of each report to an 8-member NASA Student Launch Panel.
Jessica Crisantes 