Team Ursa

Team Ursa Team URSA is a multidisciplinary team that is enhancing STEM education by designing and fabricating reference designs for sub-orbital space exploration

Team Ursa and its partner, Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, find space exploration to be a potent motivator for students and adults alike. By using the sub-orbital aerospace platform, Team Ursa works with Mavericks to inspire students and communities to invest in STEM through the development of open-source reference designs. These reference designs are intended for the educational and research

community’s use to further younger generations’ involvement in STEM, and aid in making sub-orbital space a more accessible laboratory for students. Team Ursa’s mission is to partner with the Mavericks, and to support and contribute to the lineup of Mavericks reference designs. The team does this by running its own small research projects on specific components, which may be given to Mavericks for publication to the public once they have been proven reliable. These designs are either embarked upon of the team’s own volition or are requested by Mavericks to fill gaps in their offerings; often the development process involves the team building entire research launch vehicles on which to test these designs. Such vehicles and development costs have been largely financially supported by the Maine Space Grant Consortium.

A great video put together by SolidWorks, a Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation sponsor. This clip highlights the missio...
12/05/2016

A great video put together by SolidWorks, a Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation sponsor. This clip highlights the mission of Mavericks and stars some of Team Ursa's own members who are working closely with the Mavericks to help develop open source reference designs that make space an achievable and inspiring laboratory for the next generation of STEM students!

From engineers to designers to part-time inventors, our desire to discover inspires us to build products the world did not even know it needed. BornToDesign.tv honors these innovative people and the products they were destined to create. Watch their stories here.

Hello World! Team Ursa is proud to finally share our latest exploits with everyone! For the last 2 or 3 years we've been...
10/11/2016

Hello World!

Team Ursa is proud to finally share our latest exploits with everyone! For the last 2 or 3 years we've been working on designing and building our latest launch vehicle, the Ursa 2.1. This last June it was finally flight tested by the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation! You can read all about it on our updated website: http://www.teamursa.org/media.html

The launch was not without it's hiccups, but it was an exciting and educational effort providing experience to make our next research vehicles even more of a success. One particular aspect the team is proud of was a student built payload developed at Deering High School which flew on the Ursa 2.1.

The purpose of the launch was to develop reference designs for payload packing and separation rings. Our team works closely with the Mavericks to support their mission by performing R&D work, Mavericks then uses some of our design elements for later use in all sorts of cool educational programs at schools and colleges across the country (such as at Deering). Ursa and Mavericks share a passion for making sub-orbital space a more accessible laboratory for students and inspiring a deeper involvement in STEM by our youth.

https://youtu.be/mB_-chwYoe4

Maverick Matt Rece captures the URSA 2.1 research Mercury Reference design vehicle testing the Mavericks standard separation system developed by Maverick Luk...

Pre-launch assembly!
06/20/2016

Pre-launch assembly!

Plane tickets have been booked. Team Ursa is headed to Black Rock for launch this month!
06/11/2016

Plane tickets have been booked. Team Ursa is headed to Black Rock for launch this month!

The fin can fits! Yay! For those of you following the Ursa launch we've been pushed back a couple of months. We're hopin...
10/28/2015

The fin can fits! Yay! For those of you following the Ursa launch we've been pushed back a couple of months. We're hoping to get of the ground beginning of December, but between the FAA, weather, and unreliable suppliers it's really hard to keep anything written in stone.

Team Ursa gathered this past weekend to begin assembling the Ursa 2.1 launch vehicle.  This was a very exciting weekend ...
09/23/2015

Team Ursa gathered this past weekend to begin assembling the Ursa 2.1 launch vehicle. This was a very exciting weekend as the team was able to work with the various components in the physical world as opposed to just viewing the designs. The weekend was also an oppurtunity for the team to come together. The Ursa 2.1 is set to launch next month!

We would like to thank Mide Technology for allowing us to use their shop. Their support was indispensable.

Throwback Thursday! Here's the team back in 2011. Left to right is Robbie Miller, Josh Mueller, Ryan Means, Alex Morrow,...
09/17/2015

Throwback Thursday! Here's the team back in 2011. Left to right is Robbie Miller, Josh Mueller, Ryan Means, Alex Morrow, Gerard Desjardins, and Luke Saindon

Cut the fins out and welded up the fin can today. Even if 90% of the other components are finished this is the one part ...
09/08/2015

Cut the fins out and welded up the fin can today. Even if 90% of the other components are finished this is the one part that makes you go "damn, I'm building a rocket, cool!". Ursa 2.1 launch October (tentative).

Electrical engineers on Team Ursa are an endangered species, but Ben Spencer has been hard at work developing a prototyp...
09/06/2015

Electrical engineers on Team Ursa are an endangered species, but Ben Spencer has been hard at work developing a prototype attitude control system to test during our upcoming launch as well as designing the more basic wire harnesses for the LCX flight computers (image below). During our October launch there will be redundant processing for every event, powered by separate batteries and controlling separate black powder charges. Team Ursa uses basic 4F black powder for separating the airframe at apogee as well as for deploying the recovery parachutes. The power systems and communications systems for the flight computers are accessible from outside the airframe through special ports. This is useful so that the team doesn't need to dismantle the rocket if a battery charge or programming tweak is needed.

So as you can see, Ben is a valuable asset to the team and despite having other commitments, he always finds the time to share his expertise. Thanks, Ben!

08/24/2015

Most of the parts are coming together! Team Ursa is doing major vehicle assembly on the 12th of September, in preparation for launch of the Ursa 2.1 mid October (weather permitting) on the playa in Black Rock Nevada!

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475 Wildwood Avenue
Woburn, MA
01801

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