The Strandburner project started as a Capstone project and was passed onto the Eagle Space Propulsion team. The Strandburner was created so that members of the Rocket Development Lab can characterize different propellants we design.

By burning propellant strands at different pressures, measuring continuity from the copper ribbon that has been set in the propellant, and connecting it to our PXIE unit, the team can measure the time it takes for the propellant to burn from one ribbon to another.

Once the team has that data, they are able to input their results into the equations they’ve derived and find the values to determine the characteristics of the propellants.