Lander Vehicle

Texas A&M University Sounding Rocketry Team

Overview

The Texas A&M University Sounding Rocketry Team (TAMU SRT) is participating in the Collegiate Propulsive Lander Challenge (CPLC), where the team is developing a self-landing, throttle-able, rocket powered lander vehicle. There are five CPLC milestones for competing teams to achieve, with cash prizes for the first few teams to reach each milestone.

Devin is worked under the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) team for this project, which develops all the necessary algorithms to fly and land the lander vehicle, validating them through modeling and simulation. During his time on SRT, the GNC team worked towards testing their GNC algorithms on a sub-scale, electric VTOL version of SRT's lander vehicle.

SRT successfully hot-fired the lander vehicle's hybrid engine, Gluon, for the first time in College Station, Texas, on April 20th, 2025.

Gluon.mp4

(VOLUME WARNING!)

Technical Work

Devin designed the first iteration of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control algorithm for the Lander Vehicle. This GNC system is composed of an LQG (Linear Quadratic Gaussian) controller, which combines a Linear Quadratic Regulator with a Kalman Filter.

Devin also modeled the flight dynamics of the Lander Vehicle and worked with fellow team members on CFD analysis to model the aerodynamic properties of the electric sub-scale vehicle. Devin and the GNC team implemented these algorithms onto the flight computer for the electric VTOL test vehicle to use it as a proof of concept of their application of theory. The electric VTOL test vehicle is to be a 1% model, making this a 5 lb sub-scale model of the 500 lb lander vehicle. This electric test vehicle had full 6 degree-of-freedom motion, allowing for attitude control, velocity control, and positional control.

Additionally, Devin and the GNC team developed the throttle controller for the Gluon Engine through test data and frequency analysis methods. While the lander vehicle is still under development, the GNC team continued modeling and simulation of the lander vehicle, testing regions on stability and tuning the GNC algorithms to achieve better performance while minimizing propellant usage.