We are currently haveing a Nuts About Granola sale to support our rocketry teams.  The forms are attached.  All bags are $6 and are made by a local York company.  Several flavors to chose from to sprinkle on oatmeal, ice cream, cereal, or just eat plain.  Please email your order to [email protected].

If you are not interested in granola or attending our Paint Night and would still like to help our teams please send a donation to:

Attn: Brian Hastings
Spring Grove Area High School
1490 Roths Church Road
Spring Grove, PA 17362

All checks should be made payable to SGASD.  Any donations over $100 will be recognized by the school board and your will receive paperwork for your tax deductible donation.  Any contribution, big or small, is greatly appreciated.  We would not be able to compete without all of the fantastic community support.

The NASA SLI team will be holding a Paint Night fundraiser on Thursday March 9 at 6pm.  The event will be held in the High School cafeteria.  Tickets will be $40 in advance and $45 at the door.  Registrations can be mailed or completed online.  Checks should be made payable to SGASD.  Please click on the link below for the registration form.  Thank you

Here is a new TARC launch video.  If you watch closely, at the highest point you can see it separate into two pieces each with its own parachute.  The video follows both to the ground.

The Spring Grove SLI team traveled to a local elementary school to show them the rockets and talk about the NASA SLI team.  

Some great photos from our most recent practice.  The tree?  Well, let's just say that it wouldn't be Jan without a Christmas tree launch! 

We are currently holding two fundraisers to sponsor our NASA SLI and TARC rocketry teams.  On Thursday March 9, we will have a Paint Night in the cafeteria of the high school.  You will receive all of the supplies and instruction to paint the beautiful sunflower below for only $40 (advance registration).  Tickets at the door are $45.  Checks should be made payable to SGASD.  Registration forms, found below,  and payment can be sent to:

attn: Brian Hastings
Spring Grove Area High School
1490 Roths Church Road
Spring Grove PA 17362

The second fundraiser is Nuts About Granola.  Nuts About Granola is a York company that makes all of their granola locally.  Please see the fliers below.  Payment must accompany orders and should be received at the high school by Jan 31, 2017.  

In this video you see the second rocket, Trident, taking off on a CTI K510.  The video was filmed at 240fps.  It was a perfectly straight flight and landed safely with dual deployment.

The first full scale launch of the year was a beautiful straight flight.  The drogue [parachute popped at apogee and the main at 600' just as planned.  The altitude was just over 5800ft which is fine since the payload electronics were not in it.  With the electronics, that should drop the altitude to near the 5280ft mark.

This past weekend, the team traveled to Price, MD for the MDRA launch.  Both full scale rockets were launches and they worked flawlessly.  We have not had a chance to download the data from the altimeters or anything, but they were perfectly straight flights.  All this week we will be posting photos, launch videos and other things from the launch.  Please come back and enjoy!

Below you see the main parachute ejection test.  You can see the nosecone with payload leave the upper body section and pull out the shock cord with the main parachute.  The parachute also comes out of the heat protective liner.

Prior to launching the full scale rocket, the ejection charges have to be tested.  Normally this is a ground test where you are able to see if the black powder charge is sufficient to separate the rocket and deploy the parachutes.  You are also able to see if the shock cord is the appropriate length.  Below is the drogue chute ejection test.  As you can see, the back half of the rocket is ecjected, pulling out the shock cord and the drogue chute.  There is evidence at the end of the clip that the shock cord was a bit short since it almost became taught at the end of the test.  A simulated fin mass was in the rocket and the motor casing.

​Rutters has accepted SGASD Student Launch Initiative as a supported charity as part of their Rutter Rewards program.  If you have a Rutters Rewards card, please register it and become a VIP program member on their store website.  Once you are a VIP Rewards member, go to the Rutters website, click on "Rewards", login, click on "Rutters Rewards Schools" on the far right, scroll down and click on "Student Launch Initiative" and then "Support Selected Charity" at the bottom of the page.  Once you go through this process, we will earn a donation from Rutters every time you use your rewards card to make a purchase at Rutters.  Last year we earned $500 from the donations.

We currently have TARC 2017 transitions available for sale to all teams.  The transitions are $10 each and are in a variety of sizes, BT80 to BT70, BT80 to BT60, BT80 to BT55 and BT80 to BT50.  Immediate shipping available if you  do not want a specific color.  All proceeds go towards our TARC teams.  Please email me at [email protected] to purchase.  Photos and successful launch video below.

The electronics bays were prepared for the static ejection charge test that will be performed later today on the full scale rocket.  Photos and video will be posted next week.