JHS Rocketry Goes Supersonic
By John Earp
Jal High School once again is hosting a SystemsGo Regional Rocket Launch Event this week. Rocketry teams from across the region, including teams from Dexter, Dora, Fabens TX, Grady TX, Hagerman, Hobbs, Van Horn, TX, Cloudcroft, Logan, New Tech Odessa, Lovington as well as Jal will be participating in the rocket launch event. Jal has the distinction of being the only launch site for SystemsGo high school rocket teams in the region that includes New Mexico and west Texas. This year, for the first time, the JHS Rocketry Team will launch what is called a supersonic rocket, which Rocketry Coach Nathan Richard says is designed to go Mach 1.25, which is 1400 feet per second. The Jal High School Rocketry Team will be launching their rockets Thursday morning at the launch site north of the country club. Richard says participation in the Rocketry Program at JHS has ebbed and flowed over the past nine years since he has been heading it up. Mr. Johnny Estrada has also been assisting and co-teaching the rocketry classes at JHS for the past couple of years. Richard says Estrada has been a huge asset to the program and will continue to be one in the future.
This year, Richard says the program has 20 total students involved, with 11 launching transonic rockets, and 9 launching the one-pound-one-mile (1P1M) rockets, and four of the transonic team also being on the supersonic team. All of the rockets use an inert propellant with tanks filled with nitrous oxide. Once it ignites, it streams through an orifice into the fuel grain which oxidizes and produces thrust. Richard says the motor is a hybrid motor. With the supersonic rocket, the motor system is different from the supersonic rockets, which involves differing sizes of tanks. The supersonic rocket has a motor that fills with 2800 cc of nitrous oxide, while the 1P1M rockets have either a 440-cc tank or an 835-cc tank. The transonic motor has a 1685-cc tank.
Richard says it is amazing what his rocketry students do, especially by their second year in the program. He does his best to help the students learn by doing and to be proactive in their own learning, saying, “I give them the keys to the bus. They definitely get all the credit. They do some amazing things.”
Sadi Richard, who has been involved in the rocketry program for the past couple of years. She says participating in making and launching the rockets is “amazing.” She says early in the program there are a lot of PowerPoint presentations and taking notes, but very soon it progresses to hands-on learning. The students are divided into teams of about four students, with each student having a specific area to cover, such as parachuting, designing the rocket, and propulsion. Sadi says the thing she loves most about being involved in rocketry is the freedom involved in the program. The second-year Rocketry students traveled to NASA in Houston in October to present their rocket design. “It’s a lot, but it’s super fun,” says Sadi. Angel Contreras, a first-year rocketry student, says she didn’t realize how easy it could be to build a rocket that would go a mile into the sky. She says the thing that’s been a real challenge for her has been making the data recorder for the rocket her team built this year.
The JHS Rocketry Team this year consists of Jenicka Amaro, Angel Contreras, Ezekiel Diaz, Pablo Franco, Absan Maldonado, Janice Ramirez, Francisco Ramos, Oliver Rocha, Yaneli Sauceda, Camila Baeza, Johnna Butts, David Gaytan, Johnathan Lance, Odaliz Mendoza, Ethan O’Rear, Daniel Ornelas, Ayden Parker, Cadi Richard and Sadi Richard.