AXP

The 2023 to 2024 school year was one of the University of Nebrasks-Lincoln’s Aerospaces Club’s most productive and succesful for all of our design teams.

AXP began developing BigRedSat-1 (BRS-1), a 1U cubesat with a perovskite solar cell (PSC) payload in 2020. This project reached completion in 2023, which according to NASA launch services, this was nearly record time for a university cubesat. The satellite was successfully deployed to low-earth orbit from the International Space Station in April 2024. The team received data from the satellite all the way up until August 1st, 2024 when the satellite burned up in the upper atmosphere. The mission was a great success and exceeded our planned 3-month operational lifespan.

DBF

During the fall semester of 2023 the team wrote and submitted a proposal to the 2024 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts’, (AIAA) Design Build Fly competition. During the design phase the team performed structural and aerodynamic analysis to ensure the feasability and saftey of the plane. After building a fully detailed CAD, DBF members used various manufacturing techniques such as laser cutting and 3D printing to build the plane.

DBF is currently invited to submit a design report for the 2025 AIAA DBF competition and the team is actively in the designing phase. This year the competition entails unique design challenges such as creating a smaller glider inside of the main body of the plane. The team is excited to continue competing.

LUNABOTICS

Lunabotics is a competition hosted nationally by NASA to university students. Each year, schools will construct a new robot to specifications handed out by NASA. At the end of the Spring academic session, all teams compete against each other to see who has the best robot. 

The 2023 - 2024 NASA Lunabotics Competition featured a different objective than in years past. Previously, the goal was to mine and deposit rocks remotely in a simulated lunar environment. Now, the robots are designed to dig a large quantity of lunar dirt and deposit it in a construction zone to build a berm. This new challenge forced our team to explore new design ideas.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2023 - 2024 Lunabotics rover featured dual trenchers to excavate material, a large grain bin hopper system, and a tank track drivetrain design. This robot scored 6th place out of the 40+ teams at the qualifying competition hosted by University of Central Florida. The top 10 teams, including our team, competed at Kennedy Space Center. Unfortunately, our only antenna got broken by accident, causing our robot to lose communication with our command center team controlling the robot. So, we scored 10th place. 

RPG

During Fall 2023, 100k focused on getting approval from EHS to begin the solid rocket motor project after the team encountered multiple barriers with the hybrid project. In an effort to introduce the club to the broad and amazing world of solid rocket motors, the team constructed low powered sugar motors that were able to be shot off at the end of the semester. Once the report was written, proofread, and submitted, EHS approved the club’s activities and helped with guidelines for mixing propellant in a campus lab. 

For Spring 24, 100k started with the design of our first solid rocket motor, starting off with extensive research on top of the research done for the report. Through this process of design, it was the club’s goal to secure a labspace and mix before the semester was over.

On top of design work, 100k decided to officially move on from the hybrid project and rebrand itself into Rocket Propulsion Group in order to provide a more generalized name for the purpose of providing a pathway towards future projects and broader possibilities. After much communication, RPG was able to secure a lab space with the help of the MME department and EHS as well as schedule the team’s first ever mixing session. Although the mixing session had to be stopped due to oddities with the batch, the team counted this monumental occasion as a success and an excellent way to end the semester.

Rocketry

Husker Rocketry had a monumental 2023 - 2024 acadamic year. The team grew in membership and so did the size of the competition rocket, Ragnorok. Ragnorok is Husker Rocketry’s biggest rocket to date at a whopping 10 and a half feet tall and 8 inches wide. At the launch Ragnorok made it to an altitude of over 1000 ft high.

Members became familiar with rocket design and building to the point where many were able to build small L1 rockets. Launching and retrieving these rockets succefully gave the members the opportunity to gain their cert-1 rocket license.

Husker Rocketry didn’t just build shells of rockets, but also complex payloads. One such payload was a sensor payload. This payload contained sensors which gathered and sent barometric and location data to the ground station.

In addition to Ragnorok the design team also built a 3D printed rocket with capabilities to test variable weights and their effects on performance.

UAV

UNL’s Unmanned Airial Vehicles design team worked on smaller drone racing drones and eventually began to transition into a long-term competition. Throughout the Fall semester of 2023 member were a part of various fly days where drones were tested. In addition using simulators the team began practicing drone racing. Throughout the academic year, members repaired older drones and improved thrust with modifications and more tests.

Recently the design team joined the GoAero Challenge hosted by the company GoAERO. The competition focuses on building and navigating a drone that can have a carrying capacity of 125lb. The purpose is to simulate events and technology to assist first responders to help evacute and assist those in dire situations. UAV has finished the required research and abstract for stage 1 of the competition and looks forward to stage 2 and other competitions to join.

WIA

During the 2023 - 2024 academic year, UNL Aerospace added Women in Aerospace as a team. This team has seen tremendous growth since its inception. The design team has three main focuses: Networking, Seminars, and Hosting Industry Speakers.

The team has hosted many events giving members acess to resume building workshops, matlab seminars and more. Some members of the team even went to national confrences to learn so much more. In addition, the team hosted industry speakers to talk about their company and give memebrs a place to ask questions and learn more about the wide world of engineering.