Much of my role as a propulsion engineer is ensuring that FOD is removed from the system by disassembling the feed lines and fittings on the rocket, cleaning them and spraying them with IPA before putting them back together.

I also assist with cold curing and formulate our own ignitors for our combustion chamber using PBAN, aluminum, epoxy, and hardener, two weeks prior to travelling out to the desert to conduct testing.

When the critical step of filling our tanks with propellant takes place during Cold Flow and hot fire testing, my role as dewar operator requires me to pressurize the dewar as needed and properly vent, close, and open fill lines as we prechill and fill our system.

I monitor proper psi levels and amount of cryogen flowing into the tanks, until a 10 minute timer is up after starting fill or liquid begins spewing out of the vents of the rocket.

Due to complications with melting and potential oxidation of our injector, I helped redesign part geometry for critical design reviews and manufacturing over this summer, resizing O-ring grooves for leak-resistant sealing according to the Parker O-ring handbook. I have completed drawings of the injector for CNC machinists.

I conducted oxidation research to decide on C101 as a replacement material for our injector faceplate, as the tensile strength and melting point of the metal is much higher than the previous selected material of aluminum that our project has used for years.

I machined and bent mount brackets for the pneumatic actuation system, intended to separate from the rocket pre-flight to reduce mass.

Mounted externally from our rocket, the machined components attach onto the pneumatic valve, and once actuated and opened, the valve turns 90 degrees into a position where it can slide through a built-in slot to detach from the rocket once combustion begins and it takes off.

You can view the machined brackets and mounts I made on the Lathe and Mill page of my website.

Throughout this summer, I created a JIC/AN/NPT/Compression fitting manual and annotated our feed system Piping and Instrumentation Diagram for team cohesion.