Last month, ME Student Group Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB) conducted a successful flight and recovery of low-altitude demonstrator LAD-8, the world’s first fully 3D-printed rocket of its scale. The vehicle reached just over 8,000 feet above ground level and a top speed of 850 ft/s. In addition to proving a recovery system that supports a high degree of mission reliability, LAD-8 also served to validate a revolutionary way of manufacturing rocket airframes using multi-jet fusion (MJF) 3D-printing technology. In a collaboration with ME Assistant Professor Grace Gu and HP Labs, SEB was able to print nearly the entire rocket in less than two days, demonstrating the potential for large-scale additive manufacturing in the field of amateur rocketry.
From a mechanic in the Navy to mechanical engineering at Berkeley