Lander Update: Q1 2025

oops I'm bad at posting, here are some pix

I did a lot of stuff, made a lot of progress, more work to come. I'll be static firing this year. This is the last year I'll be working on the lander, I'd like to tend to my other technical interests.

I remade the press system plumbing in all stainless hardware. NEVER use aluminum flared tubing, it's just not worth it.

Stainless printed engine parts came in...

Pintle annulus with film cooling. The top plate of the injector was lathe machined rather than printed. The printed annulus section was post machined to tolerance. The pintle tip was also 3d printed. It includes orifices that are lower than the resolvable feature requirements from the manufacturer, but if you keep tweaking sizing, you can get there with a knock down factor. Cheapo mode.

Oh, I redesigned the TVC actuators.

I also wired up everything. 

Oh and Masten let me come watch one of their test flights behind the scenes. What a spectacular vehicle and group of engineers. If a younger me knew I'd be seeing one of these flights in person...

The sunset was beautiful. The flight was dramatic...

Back to my own crap here..

I also redesigned like half the avionics, got it manufactured, and rewrote all the firmware. But this is the only single photo I have to prove this lol. I got rid of all the messy wiring, valve/relay power distribution, and the entire relay board itself. They're replaced with MOSFETs and drivers. I reduced my footprint to 10 channels, and 10 ADC input channels.

Also i made a static fire engine structure. I dont have pictures of the load cell and all the accoutrements, but those are figured out now.

See ya next time.