Roll Control

Purpose: Our May 2009 launch of LV2.3 was a huge success, but our on board video could have been better if the rocket didn't spin about the longitudinal axis.

There are two ways to correct this:

Find a better way to align the fins.
Implement an active roll axis control system to stop the rotation and actively orient the rocket in the desired orientation.

Aligning the fins should be done to minimize drag on the rocket, but an active roll control system can ensure minimal roll, and even point the on board camera in an interesting direction through the launch and recovery. Further, an experiment with roll control provides a good chance to validate a control system designed based on a dynamic model.