Question by don’t make me rko you..: what exactly does the avionics package do in model rockets?
what exactly does the avionics package do in model rockets? Please give me full description in what you know, and every detail that it does for the rocket.
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Best answer:
Answer by Mike
There are a lot of electronics available for model rockets these days – only people who cna afford electronics don’t call them “model rockets” – they are “high power rockets”.
The primary purpose of the electronics is to deploy the parachutes at the right time. Many high power rockets today do “dual deploy” where a very small parachute is deployed at apogee to get the rocket down quickly and the a much larger main parachute is deployed near the ground to provide a soft landing. You only want a small drogue so that the rocket isn’t carried far away by the wind during a long slow descent. But you do want to control the rocket’s descent rate so that as the rocket nears the ground and the avionics deploy the big main parachute the rocket isn’t going fast enough to damage itself or the main chute as the main chute opens.
Some avionics packages measure barometric pressure to calculate altitude – the pressure decreases as the rocket rises then begins to increase as the rocket falls back – this increase is assumed to be apogee and the drogue is deployed. The avionics remember the pressure from before launch and can then calculate what the pressure should be at 1000 feet (or whatever main chute deployment altitude the owner programmed) in order to know when to deploy the main.
Other avionics packages use accelerometers and integrate acceleration over time to get speed. The rocket accelerates during the motor burn then decelerates during coast – when this nets to zero the rocket is assumed to be at apogee and the drogue is deployed.
Rocket avionics are also used for ‘airstarts’ – some multi-engine rockets light some motors on the pad and th other motors in flight. This is different from multi-stage rockets where as each motor burns out it and the part of the rocket that contains it drops away (with it’s own parachute deployment electronics) and the next stage ignites and flies higher.
Many rockets also contain GPS units that transmit the rocket’s position to a ground station to help in finding the rocket after it lands. Once you have a radio for transmitting GPS position it is also possible to transmit altitude, speed, and other interesting data from the rocket in flight.
Some rockets now use two way radios to arm the flight electronics from a distance – this is far safer than having a person at the pad turn on a switch. The explosive charges for parachute deployment could hurt someone if they went off while the avionics were being armed. The motors for airstarts or multi-stage would hurt someone if they were accidentally ignited while a person was arming the rocket on the pad – so remote arming is a good idea.
Finally, many rockets today transmit photos or video to the ground while they are in flight.
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