[Music]
t-minus ten nine eight seven six five
four three two one zero
this is one of the Falcon 9 rocket
designed by SpaceX it takes satellites
to space the creation of these giant
rockets is a spectacular feat of
Engineering
as a rocket scientist in training I’m
working on my own engineering feat my
challenge though isn’t creating a giant
rocket it’s creating a very small one
I’m using many of the same rocket
science principles used by SpaceX and
NASA designed tiny Rockets like these to
go onboard small satellites called cube
SATs you satellite sir typically no
larger than a loaf of bread in ticket to
space they have to hitch a ride on board
one of the large Rockets I just showed
you
the problem is keeps up they’re so small
they don’t have a room for a
conventional propulsion system many
don’t have the capability to make large
árbol movements at all so when their
missions are complete they remain in
orbit as space junk while space may seem
like an endless infinite expanse the
fact is the space around our earth just
isn’t as big as we used to think it’s
been estimated that over 750,000
man-made objects are currently in orbit
when we don’t have control over some of
those objects like cube SATs collisions
occur the crash is damaged good
satellites including the International
Space Station and can create thousands
of pieces of additional debris garbage
satellite launches have been delayed and
the entire space station has been moved
just to avoid small pieces of debris if
things get bad enough we won’t be able
to launch anything for us at all I
believe that this very big problem can
begin to be tackled with a very small
solution tiny 3d printed rock
it’s crashes caused by cube SATs could
be avoided if the satellites had a
propulsion system to move them out of
the way of impending collisions or even
to push them out of orbit where they can
burn up in the atmosphere I’ve been
working to design and test different
hybrid rocket motors for this purpose in
order to make them work for cube SATs I
need to reduce the Rockets weight and
size while following a set of standards
used by the cubes our community the
Rockets we use are uniquely suited to
this purpose because they’re made
primarily out of 3d printed plastics the
plastics are non hazardous so we can
print the rocket fuel right on our desks
and test the rockets on campus this lets
us print the rocket since all sorts of
weird shapes and quickly investigate the
effects of design changes most Rockets
are cylindrical like these but what
would otherwise be wasted space and the
keeps out corners and edges I can
instead 3d print complex pathways for
wiring and plumbing the ability to 3d
print custom parts on demand is a luxury
that the developers of the spatial
rockets didn’t have it’s locked me in
the rest of the industry to dream a
bigger and better solutions or in my
case small isolations this is one of the
3d printed rockets that will go on to
keep that propulsion system now SpaceX
and NASA have had their successes and
they’re also had their share of failures
and so have I in attempt to maximize the
space my first designs for rockets we’re
completely triangular they looked great
on paper but when I pressure tested the
Rockets they burst at the angular
corners I’ve had to redesign over and
over you know what the new designs are
manufacturing some of these tiny parts
has been a big challenge I’ve gotten
tolerances wrong and had to get creative
to make parts fit I’ve broken or damaged
unmentionable number of tools and I get
my hands very
dirty but it’s all worth it for exciting
results
testing these Rockets in my lab can give
me some insights into how they’ll work
on cube SATs but in order to research
how they’ll actually perform in space I
need to do some tests in a vacuum
chamber that simulates the space
environment I was able to perform some
of these tests at NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center in Alabama this past
summer working at NASA was incredible on
my drive to the office every morning I
got to pass some of the giant rockets
that I’ve been describing all while
carrying my tiny rockets that could have
fit in my pocket most some hard work we
were able to get the rocket test and
designed and built inside the vacuum
chamber when the day of our first test
arrived
I watched is the control software
notified me that the rocket was sparking
the oxidizer valve opened a software or
reached my ears and I knew the test was
successful this is a video taken through
the viewing part of the test chamber now
again this success was not without some
struggles I almost set fire to the NASA
building we’ve decided to do a second
test on the rocket and at first
everything seemed normal but then we
heard a weird noise and unusual noises
are not something you want to hear when
you’re doing a rocket test we quickly
discovered that there were flames
shooting out the side of our rocket and
our test that was beginning to melt and
burn my professor quickly put out the
fire with a fire extinguisher and there
was very little loss of equipment but as
you might imagine
NASA was not very pleased with us and
that’s because I’m not the only one
using that building it has two other
space flight equipment and experiments
including some of those for the mission
to Mars it reminded me that successful
space flight is not a one-person job and
developing new technology isn’t always
an easy path I’m still striving to find
a rocket design that fulfills all of my
goals keeps up there a small part of the
larger debris problem
and my CubeSat Rockets are just a small
part of the larger space debris
mitigation solution cleaning up space
and keeping it that way
is going to take effort from many more
people like me it’s going to take
consideration from every space agency
and private company from those
developing the large launch rockets down
to the designers of each individual
satellite they need to consider what’s
going to happen to their satellite after
its mission is over they should aim for
reducing space debris with every rocket
and satellite launched and with enough
small steps we can take a giant leap
eliminating space debris
so space stays accessible for everyone
seeking to use that stellar resource
you
t-minus ten nine eight seven six five
four three two one zero
this is one of the Falcon 9 rocket
designed by SpaceX it takes satellites
to space the creation of these giant
rockets is a spectacular feat of
Engineering
as a rocket scientist in training I’m
working on my own engineering feat my
challenge though isn’t creating a giant
rocket it’s creating a very small one
I’m using many of the same rocket
science principles used by SpaceX and
NASA designed tiny Rockets like these to
go onboard small satellites called cube
SATs you satellite sir typically no
larger than a loaf of bread in ticket to
space they have to hitch a ride on board
one of the large Rockets I just showed
you
the problem is keeps up they’re so small
they don’t have a room for a
conventional propulsion system many
don’t have the capability to make large
árbol movements at all so when their
missions are complete they remain in
orbit as space junk while space may seem
like an endless infinite expanse the
fact is the space around our earth just
isn’t as big as we used to think it’s
been estimated that over 750,000
man-made objects are currently in orbit
when we don’t have control over some of
those objects like cube SATs collisions
occur the crash is damaged good
satellites including the International
Space Station and can create thousands
of pieces of additional debris garbage
satellite launches have been delayed and
the entire space station has been moved
just to avoid small pieces of debris if
things get bad enough we won’t be able
to launch anything for us at all I
believe that this very big problem can
begin to be tackled with a very small
solution tiny 3d printed rock
it’s crashes caused by cube SATs could
be avoided if the satellites had a
propulsion system to move them out of
the way of impending collisions or even
to push them out of orbit where they can
burn up in the atmosphere I’ve been
working to design and test different
hybrid rocket motors for this purpose in
order to make them work for cube SATs I
need to reduce the Rockets weight and
size while following a set of standards
used by the cubes our community the
Rockets we use are uniquely suited to
this purpose because they’re made
primarily out of 3d printed plastics the
plastics are non hazardous so we can
print the rocket fuel right on our desks
and test the rockets on campus this lets
us print the rocket since all sorts of
weird shapes and quickly investigate the
effects of design changes most Rockets
are cylindrical like these but what
would otherwise be wasted space and the
keeps out corners and edges I can
instead 3d print complex pathways for
wiring and plumbing the ability to 3d
print custom parts on demand is a luxury
that the developers of the spatial
rockets didn’t have it’s locked me in
the rest of the industry to dream a
bigger and better solutions or in my
case small isolations this is one of the
3d printed rockets that will go on to
keep that propulsion system now SpaceX
and NASA have had their successes and
they’re also had their share of failures
and so have I in attempt to maximize the
space my first designs for rockets we’re
completely triangular they looked great
on paper but when I pressure tested the
Rockets they burst at the angular
corners I’ve had to redesign over and
over you know what the new designs are
manufacturing some of these tiny parts
has been a big challenge I’ve gotten
tolerances wrong and had to get creative
to make parts fit I’ve broken or damaged
unmentionable number of tools and I get
my hands very
dirty but it’s all worth it for exciting
results
testing these Rockets in my lab can give
me some insights into how they’ll work
on cube SATs but in order to research
how they’ll actually perform in space I
need to do some tests in a vacuum
chamber that simulates the space
environment I was able to perform some
of these tests at NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center in Alabama this past
summer working at NASA was incredible on
my drive to the office every morning I
got to pass some of the giant rockets
that I’ve been describing all while
carrying my tiny rockets that could have
fit in my pocket most some hard work we
were able to get the rocket test and
designed and built inside the vacuum
chamber when the day of our first test
arrived
I watched is the control software
notified me that the rocket was sparking
the oxidizer valve opened a software or
reached my ears and I knew the test was
successful this is a video taken through
the viewing part of the test chamber now
again this success was not without some
struggles I almost set fire to the NASA
building we’ve decided to do a second
test on the rocket and at first
everything seemed normal but then we
heard a weird noise and unusual noises
are not something you want to hear when
you’re doing a rocket test we quickly
discovered that there were flames
shooting out the side of our rocket and
our test that was beginning to melt and
burn my professor quickly put out the
fire with a fire extinguisher and there
was very little loss of equipment but as
you might imagine
NASA was not very pleased with us and
that’s because I’m not the only one
using that building it has two other
space flight equipment and experiments
including some of those for the mission
to Mars it reminded me that successful
space flight is not a one-person job and
developing new technology isn’t always
an easy path I’m still striving to find
a rocket design that fulfills all of my
goals keeps up there a small part of the
larger debris problem
and my CubeSat Rockets are just a small
part of the larger space debris
mitigation solution cleaning up space
and keeping it that way
is going to take effort from many more
people like me it’s going to take
consideration from every space agency
and private company from those
developing the large launch rockets down
to the designers of each individual
satellite they need to consider what’s
going to happen to their satellite after
its mission is over they should aim for
reducing space debris with every rocket
and satellite launched and with enough
small steps we can take a giant leap
eliminating space debris
so space stays accessible for everyone
seeking to use that stellar resource
you
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