| ABS |
Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene |
A 3D printing plastic made from Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, and Styrene polymers. |
| BFO |
Bear Force One |
The name of STAR's IREC 2020 rocket. This is also our 2021 entry due to the competition being postponed. |
| BOM |
Bill of Materials |
A list of the materials that go in to an engineering assembly or design. |
| CAD |
Computer Aided Design |
The usage of computer software (i.e. SolidWorks) to design parts or assemblies. |
| CAM |
Computer Aided Machining |
The use of a computer program to plan toolpaths, usually for waterjet or CNC, but sometimes used in the context of additive manufacturing. |
| CAS |
Common Avionics System |
This is a STAR acronym for our modular electronics stack devloped by Avionics and the associated missions to qualify it for flight. Usable for liquid engine control, radio, flight data monitoring, and pyrogen ignition. |
| CDR |
Critical Design Review |
A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a final design and technical challenges that may occur in the fabrication and testing process. |
| CFD |
Computational Fluid Dynamics |
Using a computer to analyze the movement of a liquid in a specific instance. Common uses include engine propellant flow and wing lift analyses. |
| CNC |
Computer Numeric Control |
Basically, using a computer to control the motion of a manufacturing machine, most commonly a mill, lathe, or waterjet cutter. Sometimes used to describe additive manufacturing / 3D printing. |
| CONOPS |
Concept of Operations |
A time-sequenced description of the steps of a mission and how they are to be performed at a high level. |
| DAVE |
Deployable Aerial Vehicle Experiment |
A deployable glider payload intended to fly in a 6" diameter airframe, likely Bear Force One (see: BFO). |
| FEA (also FEM) |
Finite Element Analysis or Modelling or Method |
Using a computer program to calculate the strength of a mechanical part and its resistance to different load cases. |
| FRR (also MRR) |
Flight/Mission Readiness Review |
A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a project's readiness for launch and evaluate the rigor of its design, construction, and testing. |
| GD&T |
Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing |
An engineering practice to precisely specify how a part should be shaped or constructed. |
| GM |
General Meeting |
Meeting of the entire club. |
| IREC (also SAC) |
Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition or Spaceport America Cup |
A custom rocket design competition run by ESRA. |
| LE1 |
Liquid Engine 1 |
A "simple" liquid engine test article designed to hotfire on an accelerated schedule |
| LE2 |
Liquid Engine 2 |
A more complex multi-year liquid engine project with the goal of producing a test article that is viable or close to viable for integration and flight. |
| NASA SL (also SLI, USLI) |
NASA (University) Student Launch (Initiative) |
The largest and most well-known collegiate rocketry competition. Run by NASA out of Marshall Space Flight Center, it follows the NASA design review process through the entire competition. |
| PDR |
Preliminary Design Review |
A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a design's architecture and what problems may arise from it in very broad strokes. |
| PDM |
Product Data Management |
A tool used to keep track of revisions to data, files and other project-related information. Examples include Grabcad workbench and GitHub. |
| PLA |
Polylactic Acid |
Another very common 3D printing plastic. |
| PLAR |
Post Launch Assessment Review |
In STAR, this is a document filled out after a launch or major test reviewing whether we met mission goals and why/why not. |
| PRR |
Production Readiness Review |
A review of CAD, manufacturing drawings and other manufacturing artifacts like 3D printing toolpaths to ensure that parts are manufacturable and correctly toleranced. |
| SSEP |
Stage Separation (Demonstrator) |
STAR mission to develop and mature stage separation technology within the club. |
| SW |
SolidWorks |
A CAD and FEA tool with free educational licenses. It is our team's primary CAD software. |