Ouroboros Spaceflight Experiment

During the summer of 2021, I was working with a team from the Engineering System Labratory (ESL) to develop a housing for an experiment to be flown on a Blue Origin sub-orbital spaceflight. Over a very tight time frame of three months our team developed the experiment and designed it to be flown in the alloted space on the rocket. This spaceflight flew sucessfully on August 26 of 2021 and the expermient functioned with data capture. Since I was primarily responsible for designing the experiment housing I learned a lot about working in small teams and researching and interpreting technical documents as well as integrating indivudal components together in a working fashion.

Presentation

This experiment was about collecting data on fluid tranfer in a microgravity enviroment. ESL had been developing a concept for refueling satelites while still in orbit but the knowledge of the underlying refueling mechanics was still not extremely well documented. I designed the housing for this experiment and had to adhere to design requirements that came from the experiment design itself and also specifications from Blue Origin technical documents related to the experiment racks.

There have been precedents to this experiment related to fluid sloshing both in and out of low gravity enviroments but not a comprehensive on actual fluid transfer from one chamber to another.

June was mostly spent developing the experiment itself from the concept to the actual physcial components laid out in the housing. July was spent with iterating the housing model and experiment as well as integrating the final verion. August was used to prepare the experiment for transport as well as doing final tests.

The housing was essentially a 3D printed box with a securable lid and slots for electrical wires. Inside are various support posts for the different experiment components and fasteners. Getting the weight precise was very important as the team was given a limit to the weight of the experiment.

Above is the acceleration data from the experiment, showing a distinct micro-gravity phase and also the launch, landing, and parachute deployment.

Not only was out data sucessfully captured but an integrated camera documented all of the fluid transfer.