Sunburnt Space Co

Want a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of a rocket design? Well, we're giving you a front-row seat. Yesterday, Mirko, our talented videographer, joined us, cameras in hand, ready to capture the magic. With meticulous questions and keen eyes, he snapped some incredible shots of the Meggs Jr rocket design process. It's always a blast (pun intended) when creativity meets technology. Mirko’s working on part one as we speak – can’t wait to see the final cut! Stay tuned for a glimpse into our world of innovation and hard work.

With Great Pressure Comes Great Responsibility 🚀 In rocket design, managing high pressures is one of our biggest challenges. From specialized plumbing to precision valves and critical safety devices, every part must be meticulously designed to withstand extreme forces. When designing a rocket, you are not only engineering for performance but ensuring safety and reliability are top priorities. Curious about how we plan to manage these high-pressure environments in our rocket systems? Read the full story on our blog and discover the incredible engineering that powers our journey to space. https://lnkd.in/dfRc67j3

Rockets don't just fly on dreams; they need precise control and expert engineering. 🔧 Specialist Plumbing Every joint and weld, made from high-grade stainless steel or titanium, gets tested to extremes. No leaks allowed. 🌡️ Material Magic Materials face pressure, corrosion, and temperature extremes. Aluminium, stainless steel, and PTFE are key players. 🚀 Valves: The Gatekeepers Valves, often inconel or titanium, handle extreme conditions and rapid changes. They can make or break a mission. 🔒 Safety First Safety devices like pressure relief valves and automated monitoring systems are essential. They prevent over-pressurisation and shield teams. Precision Engineering: Creating Harmony Every piece must work together seamlessly. This balance keeps us reaching for the stars. Want to dig a little deeper on these? Heres our latest article on dealing with pressures: https://lnkd.in/dfRc67j3

The Power of Simplicity in Rocket Design 🚀 When it comes to designing and building Meggs Jr, our first rocket, we are trying to move fast. We want to be one of Australia's first rockets to space and we want to show we can do it. Our approach is simplicity itself: keep things simple. Our main design principle. Rather than chasing the bleeding edge of performance, we're focusing on practical, achievable performance. We've opted to overcompensate on material, even at the cost of added weight, to simplify manufacturing and assembly. This means fewer headaches and more confidence in our build process. In fact, we've designed Meggs Jr. to achieve its mission even if we drop performance down to 80%. This gives us the flexibility to make adjustments, ensuring everything fits together perfectly and works as expected. The result? A rocket designed to soar over 150km, built faster and more efficiently by sticking to the fundamentals of simplicity. We're proving that sometimes, less really is more, especially when you're building the future of Australian space exploration. #AerospaceEngineering #KeepItSimple

Let me tell you a little about my Vision for Sunburnt Space Co. Forging New Frontiers, The Aussie Way 🚀 I started Sunburnt Space Co out of a passion for building rockets, ability to build businesses and to think big. It's a bold vision but I want to ensure Australia plays it's part in the future of Space. We've done it before and we can do it again. Take the Aussie passion for exploration and the pioneering spirit that defines Australia to push the boundaries. We have begun with an optimistic goal of launching an Australian-designed and built rocket into space from Australian soil. But we won’t stop there. We want to go further. Here's just a few things we are aiming to do: - Demonstrating our capability: Our first mission, Meggs Jr., is more than just a technical achievement. It's a statement of what Aussie ingenuity can accomplish. - Pioneering Space Exploration: With our sights set on pushing human adventure to new limits, our long-term vision includes supporting public and private space exploration, ultimately enabling human travel to distant worlds. I for one would love to see Jupiter up close before I die. - Simplifying Space Access: We believe that space exploration shouldn't be reserved for a select few. Our mission is to make space more accessible, affordable, and achievable for all. - Inspiring a Nation: We're on a mission to inspire the next generation of Australian engineers, scientists, and space enthusiasts to dream big and reach for the stars. Follow along as we take our first steps into space and work towards a future where space is within everyone’s reach. Together, we can take Australia to the stars and beyond. #SpaceExploration #SunburntSpaceCo

Progress has been made on the Meggs Jr. launch. The First task in calculating Casualty Expectations is done. ✅ We spent the weekend successfully working out the Nominal Flight Trajectory using a 6 Degrees of Freedom (6-DOF) model and writing the initial round of MATLAB scripts. So, what's 6-DOF? It’s a way to describe movement in 3D space. 1. Move left-right 2. Move up-down 3. Move forward-backward 4. Pitch (tilting up and down) 5. Yaw (turning left and right) 6. Roll (spinning around) Crucial for working out where your rocket will go. This achievement brings us closer to securing our Australian Launch Permit. Stay tuned as we continue our journey through the Flight Safety Code.

I absolutely love our company name and logo. The name Sunburnt Space Co. reflects our rugged Australian landscape and our ambition to launch from the sunburnt land into the vastness of space. A nod to the Sunburnt Country. I asked my design shop to come up with a logo that showed elements of our Aussie history with the feel for space. This logo is what they created. Just amazing. Looking forward to getting it added to the side of our rockets. You can visit our website here for more updates: https://lnkd.in/gjAgYerR

We are officially on our way. On Wednesday night I bought along a few things including Fatty Finn, my L3 Cert Rocket to kick start the building of our Space Shot rocket Meggs Jr. Fattty is about half the size of what Meggs Jr will be, just to give you an idea. On the floor you will see the prototype motor casing for Meggs Jr. it’s on the floor because it weights about 25kg and is the heaviest part of the rocket. If you want to be a part of the mission or just want to follow along, check us out at sunburnt space.com.au.

The Prototype Engine case is assembled. This prototype is made purely for the purpose of getting a feel for the size of the rocket. It contains a 3D printed nozzle to help us understand the manufacturing process. The real one will be made from Graphite. The case is built to withstand the 10KN burn for more than 40 seconds. The chamber pressure will be around 20 bar so it needs to take a bit of a shalacking. The design is made to be a simple as possible. This is to make manufacturing as easy as possible. This will allow a shorter time line than you would normally spend on such a project. There is a little overkill in the design but this is partly the trade off to simplify. The final product will be made from stainless steel. The main tube will have supporting ribs on the outside that will allow the engine to mount squarely in the engine mount and to support it under pressure. More to come so make sure you are following along. PS Our website is now up. Go check it out at: https://lnkd.in/gjAgYerR

Let me introduce to you Lil' Insanity. The rocket engine that is going to take us to space. (Lil' Insanity is a nod to the Aussie comic strip Insanity Streak) The engine will burn a mix of Ethanol and Nitrous Oxide to produce about 10KN of thrust. We are aiming for it to burn for about 40 seconds, which should be enough to get the rocket over the karmen line. The engine will burn at over 2500^K and the graphite nozzle will take the brunt of this. The casing and injector plates will be made from stainless steel to handle the big temperature fluctuations and pressures. The combustion chamber will be working at around 20 bar of pressure. The injector will be a simple impinged design, which simply means the N2O stream will be aimed at the Ethenol stream so they meet and partly atomise at pressure before combusting in the heat. You can see from the exploded view in the picture, the injector is a very simple design. The entire rocket is designed with the principle of simplicity. More to come on this. Be sure to follow along as we build and launch Meggs Jr to space.