The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS), a student project at Portland State University, launched a rocket out in the Oregon desert on July 19th. The rocket soared nearly three miles into the sky—an impressive feat, but that's just the beginning for PSAS. The group has its sights set much higher.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

In the video, you see the ground quickly zoom away as the rocket, dubbed "LV2.3," shoots into the sky. It's a stunning sight—and one the group captured unintentionally.

"The camera falling out of the vehicle was accidental," chuckles Andrew Greenberg, an adjunct professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at PSU who is involved in the club. "In this case, the plastic cracked and the camera came out at Mach 1." The Raspberry Pi-based camera was intended to record from the side of the rocket's payload module. "3D-printing plastic is not necessarily great for rockets, it turns out."

The club's goals are loftier than just getting a few miles above the Earth. When asked for the ultimate goal of the program, Greenberg is direct. He wants to put a nanosatellite into orbit.

"We try to build as much as we can," says Greenberg. When you're trying to build a space-bound rocket, the to-do list is impressive. "We're building our own avionics system. We're building our own software-defined radio GPS systems. We're building our own Ethernet-based systems. We're using WiFi as a long distance telemetry on the amateur radio band."

The plan to build a nanosatellite (specifically a CubeSat) came to the group during all of this tinkering. After an inspired burst of DIYing, they realized their computer for getting the rocket to space was pretty close to functioning as a tiny satellite. All they had to do was figure out how to give it a second life in orbit.

Typically CubeSats function as small satellites that do their business only after they're in orbit. They're deployed out into space as a 10-centimeter cube that then conducts scientific research within some specifically defined parameters. It does not typically handle avionics for a rocket. But PSAS's CubeSat does double duty. "Our CubeSat has an Ethernet peripheral called 'a rocket,' and it flies up and drops itself off and throws itself into space and then it becomes a satellite," Greenberg says. "All that is, is a change of software, right?"

"When you're talking orbital-class rocket, there are a billion things to do to prove it's safe."

The technological hurdles are one thing. The bigger obstacle keeping Portland State Aerospace Society from reaching orbit? "Think 'money and lawyers,'" says Greenberg. Including the Portland State Aerospace Society, there are other amateur groups that could potentially put something into orbit like the Boston University Rocket Propulsion Group and Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering in the Netherlands. In fact, the Civilian Space eXploration Team (CSXT) made it 115 kilometers into the sky (which is, by all definitions, space) in 2004. But there's no amateur group putting stuff in orbit just yet.

They all face the same problems of international law, regulatory compliance, safety analysis, and a litany of other hurdles. "As soon as you start talking orbital-class rocket, there are a billion things you need to do to prove that your rocket is safe," Greenberg says. "Minneapolis-St. Paul doesn't like it when you drop your first stage on them."

These are complicated matters even for massive companies like SpaceX. It's even harder for a small group of hobbyists. "If somebody drops out of the sky and says, 'Here's $10 million dollars, and here's a cadre of lawyers for you to use,' we'd happily do it," says Greenberg. "But we don't expect that to happen." They currently make do on between $3,000 and $10,000 a year in fundraising, but at some point those hurdles will become an issue that will require serious money to solve. For now, the group chooses to focus on better rockets and better avionics.

Then again, Greenberg and the Portland State Aerospace Society have a history of overcoming setbacks. In 2005, they were at the cutting edge of amatuer rocketry. "We had the world's most advanced avionics system," Greenberg says. "It was a Linux-based computer that used the controller area network that's used in cars. It had everything our current rocket has, but it was way ahead of its time." He's pretty certain it was the first time, for example, people had used WiFi in rockets.

"We launched it, and it worked beautifully. Everything we thought would fail, like the software and the radios, worked perfectly." The one piece of equipment to fail? The parachute. "We lawn darted that thing at close to Mach 1 into the ground," he laughs.

"We lawn darted that thing at close to Mach 1 into the ground."

The loss of the rocket set the group back badly—they didn't launch another rocket for four years—but they learned from their mistakes. "We build three of everything, so if we lose something that's okay." If the group can recover from smashing up one of their best rockets, who's to say they couldn't figure out the lawyers and regulatory angle as well?

In the meantime, the group has their hands full with a new "LV3" airframe they're hoping could eventually reach 100 kilometers (or about 62 miles). "100 kilometers is the magic number," Greenberg says giddily. "You get to say you're in space if you've gone 100 kilometers."

They've already made it five kilometers. What's another 95?

http://secure.insightexpressai.com/adServer/adServerESI.aspx?bannerID=447108&script=false&redir=//secure.insightexpressai.com/adserver/1pixel.gif

http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=3&c2=6035258&c3=159753&c4=1981&c5=9211981&c6=&c10=1&c11=hearst&c13=1x1&c16=gen&cj=1&ax_fwd=1&rn=[TIMESTAMP]&

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io