Radio Rocket
Check out the Radio Rocket Tag for blog posts about this project or Follow the Rocket’s Adventures on Mastodon!
N3VEM Radio Rocket
I’m currently dabbling with some rocketry stuff with the kiddos, so of course I had to start playing around with ways to stick some radio stuff in the rockets.
Radio Rocket Nigemono (v1)
Version 1 of the radio rocket, code named Nigemono retroatively, was a modified mid-power Aerotech Initiator Kit, made longer to accommodate the electronics and antenna’s, and equipped with a larger than stock parachute because of the extra weight associated with the extra components. We crashed that one…
Radio Rocket Odori (under development)
The ‘under construction’ version of the rocket, which is going by the code-name ‘Odori’ until it gets if final name completion, is currently being designed around a 38mm diameter airframe. The smaller diameter should enable Odori to get a bit more altitude from the same size engines (you know, less drag and all.)
The Electronics Sled
The lead picture is of the electronics sled that was build for Odori, that slides into the rocket. This carries the LoRa radio and sensors for telemetry. The APRS radio will get it’s own sled, which will be closer to the nose of the rocket.
APRS
Nigemono (v1) had a lightAPRS for APRS packets. I detailed in the lightAPRS groups.io group the modifications that I did so that I could get more packets through faster, since at the relatively low altituides this rocket will reach, the flights will be short. The plan is to put the same, or a similar, APRS radio into Odori.
LoRa
Onboard the Odori rocket is a Teensy 4.1 with a 70cm LoRa module and some other sensors. The LoRa radio allows the rocket to send telemetry data, and also receive some basic commands from the ground station.
Ground Station
To communicate with the rocket, the current ground station is based on a Libre Computer LePotato single board computer, and a 70cm Adafruit Feather w/ LoRa, as the companion radio to the LoRa module on the rocket.