The following letter was sent out to TRG members recently as a call to participate in the TRG's latest group challenge.  Although the TRG holds group participation projects, such as the Bowling Ball Loft rocket, the Karlsson Brewery sponsored 4" Jayhawk in 2008, and the Zion II and III projects in 2008, we determined that greater participation by more members is desired.  We created the current project, inspired by the Team America Rocketry Challenge, to allow greater participation and to involve outside, non-members as well.  More people can participate in this challenge than is practical for a large single group project.  The large projects are still in work, but we invite all TRG members to create a team and enter a rocket into Project Pop-Fly.

The following letter describes the project and mission specification in detail.

If you want to participate, please send me an email at kevin@temecularocket.com.  I'll be happy to provide whatever information and assistance I can.

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen.

My name is Kevin Yackley and I am the newly appointed director of the “Not-Another-Space Administration”, or NASA for short.  You may have heard of our fictitious organization.   We fly rockets, conduct science experiments, and otherwise play with cool toys many of which we invent here.  Since I was appointed to my new post with NASA, I’ve been able to start some cool new space exploration projects.  Our latest Project is called “Project Pop Fly”.  Our engineers want to land an instrument package on the surface of IO, one of Jupiter’s moons.  We are seeking contractors to design and build our launch vehicle (for the Earth to orbit phase), cruise stage (to get the payload to Jupiter) and a landing vehicle to gently set down our instrument payload onto the moon’s surface.  We already have the payload complete, and all of the telemetry and communications sub-systems are under contract, so all we are require is the delivery vehicle itself.  That’s where you come in.

You have received this bid specification because we believe you and your team have the necessary skills and talents to design and build our production spacecraft and launch vehicle.  But we realize that the cost would be prohibitive to build a full scale prototype as a proposal, so we have scaled back the requirements for bidding.  We will select our contractor to build the flight spacecraft based on the results of a small scale prototype, which I will describe in this letter.  We will evaluate your designs against our selection criteria that include cost, suitability to meet our mission requirements, performance in actual flight conditions, and of course cleverness and style.

Since we have had so many budget cuts here at NASA, we’ve had to scale down our project to save money.  And since the greatest cost in space exploration is getting our payloads into earth orbit and beyond, we have had to miniaturize our instruments.  Our very clever engineers have packaged our entire payload into a sphere weighing exactly 5.125 ounces (at sea level on Earth).  They have produced a number of identical Payload Packages and will provide them to qualified, registered teams.  Teams may modify the package as necessary for their launch configuration, such as adding mounting or connection struts.  The total mass of the equipment package will be checked on launch day to ensure that no internal modifications have been made to our payload.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design and build a rocket to meet three specific mission criteria:

1. Launch

2. Cruise

3. and landing.

 Launch Phase:

Your design must launch our Payload Package to an altitude of exactly 1000 feet.  This will demonstrate your ability to place our payload into earth orbit (because we all know how similar those activities are.)  Anyway … We will assign a score to each team based on their altitude accuracy.  Your prototype must include space for our standard Payload Package (the baseball) plus our telemetry package in a separate, isolated payload bay.  Our telemetry package is a cylinder approximately 1” diameter by 4“ long.  We will provide the “telemetry package” for your flight and we will help you integrate it into your spacecraft on site the day of your demonstration launch.  Our engineers will monitor your telemetry data to determine the precise altitude your rocket reaches.

Any motor (or combination of clustered, or staged motors) up to G-Power (total impulse) may be used.  The total impulse upper limit will be strictly enforced.  Points will be awarded on a bell-shaped curve with a perfect score for the specified altitude and deductions for both higher and lower altitudes.

Cruise Phase:

To demonstrate your teams’ ability to get our payload to Jupiter, your prototype rocket must provide a means of staying aloft for the longest time possible.  Our thinking is that if your prototype can protect our payload for a long flight time here on earth, then your production spacecraft will also be able to handle the long duration space flight necessary for our mission.  Any and all recovery methods are acceptable.  We expect the standard parachute-type recovery to be employed by some teams, but we know there are other ways to keep a payload aloft for a really long time.  Use your creativity, cleverness, and design style here to impress us with your abilities.

We will provide timing devices on launch day and our staff will monitor flight duration from lift-off until landing, rounded up to the next higher second.  Your score for this phase will be the total number of seconds in your flight duration.  Ingenuity counts, so we may also apply a “degree of difficulty” modifier to your score if applicable.

Landing Phase:

Our instrument package has photo sensitive instruments aboard that must be exposed to sunlight while on IO’s surface.  Therefore your prototype must include some means of ensuring that the instrument package is outside of the launch vehicle on landing.  For example it must exit any enclosed payload bays, or fairings must be jettisoned, on or before landing.  Transparent payload bays are also acceptable as long as the payload bay survives the landing.  Although it is our desire that the entire payload sphere be exposed to sunlight on landing, we will identify the most critical sensors on the Payload Package and those areas, at a minimum, must be exposed to sunlight on landing.

Additionally, our Payload Package is very sensitive to shock.  To determine if your recovery and landing mechanisms were successful, the Payload Package must not leave a crater deeper than ¼” as indication that it landed with sufficiently low G-forces.  We will also presume that the landing was successful if the Payload Package does not touch the ground itself by using some sort of “lander”.  This should give you sufficient design flexibility to solve this mission critical parameter.

Score will be awarded based on mechanical performance – exposure of our instruments to sunlight and g-shock performance.  Additional points may be awarded based on cleverness of the design or style (if warranted).

Additional Requirements and Information:

Your prototype must meet or exceed all applicable safety codes.  This cannot be stressed enough.  We think safety first here at NASA.   Your design can either be scratch-built or you can build from a kit with whatever modifications you require.  There are no restrictions (other than safety codes) on the rocket design, shape, fin configuration, etc.

I’ll submit more information later, regarding launch schedules, etc.  Meanwhile, get to work on your designs.

If you have questions about the mission, please direct them to our general email address chat@temecularocket.com.  You must also visit our website www.temecularocket.com and go to the “TRG Chat” page.  Enter your name and email address to join.

Emails to other addresses may be ignored or forwarded to that email address by our staff.  There are no secret questions and no answers will be provided privately.  All questions and answers relative to this mission are, and shall be considered, public.

Please respond if you intend to participate in this bid.  I will register your entry in our bidders log, provide you with a “Payload Package” and keep you posted on mission status and schedules.  Also, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and colleagues.  We want to get as many teams participating as possible. There are no restrictions on team age so bring in parents, siblings, and friends.  The only restrictions are team size (1 or 2 member) and at least one of the members must be a TRG member.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Kevin Yackley

Director of Fun Space Programs

Not-Another-Space Administration (NASA)