Subscale Launches
Senior Design Project for 2025. Mechanical Engineering Department Project.
The payload team has promoted the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering with their successful launch at the 2025 NASA Student Launch Competition. The competition is a yearly event that includes colleges around the country. It challenges students to design, build, and launch a rocket with a payload inside. Each year NASA changes the payload’s requirements. This year the payload had three main jobs: collecting flight data like rocket speed, air temperature, and rocket height; transmitting the data using radio waves; and keeping model astronauts safe during flight and landing. To meet the competition’s requirements, the team went through a detailed design process. This included developing over one hundred ideas and using specific strategies to narrow them down to a final design. The payload design that was chosen is a small cylindrical capsule placed inside the rocket and attached at the base of the nosecone. The capsule houses the model astronauts and the electronic system. The electronic system, that was designed by the team, collects all necessary flight data and transmits the data using a radio. The payload team worked with the rocket team to ensure that the payload fits inside the rocket without affecting its performance. After choosing the final design, the team tested the payload to ensure it could handle the forces during the rocket’s flight. These tests included drop tests, vibration tests, and load bearing tests on the payload’s mounting system. The team also checked the electronics to ensure that the sensors, computers, and software worked under real flight conditions. Each of these tests validated that the payload was ready for launch. Using the detailed design process the team successfully built and placed a payload into the rocket for the 2025 NASA Student Launch Competition.
Shayne McConomy
Ph.D.
ME - Teaching Faculty II
Sponsor
Taylor Higgins
Ph.D.
ME - Assistant Professor
Advisor
Matthew Archibald
Mechanical Engineer
Fabrication Engineer
Donovan Dwight
Mechanical Engineer
Test Engineer
Nathan Hardie
Computer Engineer
Communication
Systems
Engineer
Kyle Mahoney
Mechanical Engineer
Structural Engineer
Neil Maldonaldo
Electrical Engineer
Data
Systems
Engineer
Phone: (850) 410-6161
Address: 2525 Pottsdamer St, Tallahassee, FL 32310