Executive summary

The USLI Payload and Avionics was created to be used inside a rocket that was launched in a NASA competition. In this competition, a rocket is launched and reaches approximately 4700 feet at its peak, and then it lands within a 2500 foot radius of the launch pad, all within two minutes. It is the responsibility of the Avionics technology to track flight data, such as altitude and GPS location, and to provide signals for when to eject each of the parachutes inside the rocket. The entire landing space is broken up into a square grid with 400 sections. Each grid space is 250 by 250 feet, and these make up the 20 rows and 20 columns of the larger grid. The Payload is a separate system from the Avionics technology, and its responsibility is to autonomously calculate which of the 400 grid squares the rocket has landed inside without the use of GPS. Once the grid square is calculated, it is transmitted to the home station. A fully successful Payload and Avionics system would allow a competition rocket to be launched, deploy its two different parachutes at appropriate altitudes, store its actual landing location with the Avionics GPS, and correctly calculate and broadcast the landing location to the launch site with the payload technology.