AeroPac History

• AeroPac (Association of Experimental Rocketry of the Pacific) a

Northern California Prefecture of Tripoli was started by a small
group of folks in 1989.
• Tripoli is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement
and operation of amateur high power rocketry and was established
in 1964. Our members are drawn from the United States and 22
additional countries.
• Jim and I joined AeroPac in 1994 when there were less than 100
members.
• We also joined Tripoli in 1994 and there were only about 3,000
members.
• Since joining AeroPac the members have grown to over 400
members.
• Since joining Tripoli there are about 10,000 members world wide.
 ARLISS History
• ARLISS started by Professor Twiggs of Stanford University and our
friend Tom Rouse.
• Professor Twiggs and Tom had been working on a project together
on an electronics project Tom was doing for a high altitude prize.
During that time Professor Twiggs went to the JUSTSAP conference
in Hawaii in November, 1998 where it was proposed the students
build a satellite in a soda can. Professor Twiggs and Tom were
having a breakfast meeting about Tom’s project when Professor
Twiggs mentioned the “CanSat” program and Tom said he belonged
to the rocket club AeroPac and he knew some folks that would like
to help launch this program.
• In early 1999 we received a call from Tom asking if we wanted to be
part of the elite team for helping students test their satellites.
Professor Twiggs and Tom Rouse
 ARLISS History (cont.)
• The original fliers were Pius Morizumi, William
Walby, Ranny Mitchell, Jim and me.
• We had our first meeting in February, 1999 at
Stanford to figure out what we would call the
program and what rocket and motor combination
we could use to get the altitude so we could give
the students the LEO pass time for
communications.
• Most of the meeting was trying to figure out what
we would call the program. A Rocket Launch for
International Student Satellites (ARLISS) was
created.
 Original ARLISS Fliers

Tom Rouse, William Walby, Ranny Mitchell, Griffin Mitchell, Pius Morozumi,
Jim Green, Becky Green
 ARLISS History (cont.)

• We had test flights in June and August, 1999 to

make sure everything would work as planned.
On September 11 & 12, 1999 we had the first
ARLISS launch. There were 4 schools
represented. University of Tokyo, Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Arizona State University
and Kennedy Middle School. Each team built
CanSats and the ARLISS team provided 4
rockets to launch 3 CanSats in each rocket.
There were 4 ARLISS flights in 1999.
School Bus
Tokyo Institute of Technology University of Tokyo

Arizona State University Kennedy Middle School

 ARLISS History (cont.)
• The second ARLISS launch was held in July, 2000 with
participation from the University of Tokyo, the Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Kyushu University, Nihon
University, Stanford University, California State
University-Hayward, Arizona State University, St.
Andrews High School, and San Louis Obispo High
School. There were 11 ARLISS flights in 2000.
• The third ARLISS launch was held in July, 2001 with
participation from the University of Tokyo, the Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Lockheed Martin and several
others. This year marked the beginning of the
“Comeback competition” and “Open Class” satellites.
 ARLISS History (cont.)

• The fourth ARLISS launch was held in

August, 2002. The number of participants
continued to grow. Again the University of
Tokyo, the Tokyo Institute of Technology,
Kyushu University and several others were
there. The number of flights had increased
to around 20.
• The fifth ARLISS was held in September,
2003 with 10 universities participating.
 ARLISS History (cont.)

• The sixth ARLISS in September, 2004 AeroPac

decided to separate it into its own launch so we
could concentrate on only ARLISS flights.
• The remaining ARLISS launches were held each
year in September and the participants had
expanded to include Spain, South Korea and
Hawaii as well as the continued appearance of
University of Tokyo and several other Japanese
universities. By 2006 the number of flights had
increased to 33.
 Mission of ARLISS

• The main mission of ARLISS is quite

simply to launch and deploy the student’s
project perfectly.
• ARLISS rockets are designed with
interchangeable parts so that they can be
repaired in the field easily.
 Thank You
• University of Tokyo
• JAXA
• UNISEC
• Shinichi Nakasuka
• Rei Kawashima
• Steve & Oksana Pope (Video)
• AeroPac
• Tripoli
• ARLISS
• Professor Twiggs
Questions?