Overview

Recovery is a critical, but often overlooked, rocket system. Project Prometheus had one of the most successful recovery systems in MIT Rocket Team’s recent history. Its two members were Ariella Blackman (Class of 2027) and Elizabeth Jackson (Class of 2027), with assistance and guidance from our Team Lead, Ezra Eyre (Class of 2026), and Project Phoenix and Medusa Recovery Engineer, Jenna Blair (Class of 2026). Overall, the subteam accomplished a lot and was able to test new experimental deployment systems, design and manufacture their own parachutes, and test their system during Prometheus Test Launch. 

Timeline was as follows:

October: First Design Cycle

November: PDR, Second Design Cycle

December: CDR

January-March: Manufacturing and Testing

April: Test Launch

May: Failure and Success Analysis

The Design was based off of the requirements from Spaceport that required a drogue parachute if hitting above 2,000 ft of altitude. Each of our two stages (Booster and Sustainer) had two parachutes (Drogue and Main), both mains were purchased from Rocketman Parachutes and the drogues were designed and  manufactured by the team. The new deployment mechanism that we used was a black powder ejection technique that was for three of our parachutes. Due to altitude, the fourth parachute had a piston assembly instead.

We had a 75% success rate (three out of four total parachutes) with deployment during Test Launch. While we were not satisfied with this result, this is the most successful Recovery System in the last 4 years. After Test Launch we completed a failure analysis and discussed important changes that we want to make going forward.

In summary, Project Prometheus’s Recovery System went through an entire engineering cycle with successes and important lessons about recovery learned. Below are details on components and guides to how we accomplished what we did, and what we would like to do better.(being filled in)

Deployment Mechanism (https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/x/9YhgE)

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