Smudge before flight
“I’m moving to Boston in three weeks!” When I graduated from high school, I had just learned that I had been accepted into the Interphase EDGE program, which was a great opportunity to adjust to life at MIT before the start of the 2022 academic year.
I’m excited for this opportunity because I’m facing huge changes at my home in Claremore, on the Cherokee Nation reservation in northeastern Oklahoma. I’ve only been away on my own once, during a fifth-grade space camp trip to Huntsville, Alabama, where I first fell in love with aerospace engineering.
It didn’t take long to find community on campus. To my surprise, among the dozen or so students attending the Aboriginal community welcome event, there were three graduate students and one undergraduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As a future 16-course major and FIRST Robotics alumnus, I was excited to find out that they planned to form a new team for the First Nations Launch (FNL) rocket competition (NASA Artemis Student Challenge). This is a great opportunity to blend my passion for technology with my cultural roots.
That first year, many people questioned the necessity of our team. “MIT already has a rocket team,” they would say. But while most build teams are defined by the specific projects they work on, product is only one aspect of the experience.
Yes, I learned to design, build, launch and safely recover model rockets. But doing this with other Native engineers in a group we called MIT Doya (ᏙᏯ, Cherokee for beaver) taught me more than just engineering skills. In addition to learning how to work with composite materials or design fins, I also learned how to navigate classes and connect with professors. I learned about the institute. I learned how to celebrate my Aboriginal identity and honor my ancestors through my work. For example, we often perform smudging rituals—burning sage to cleanse ourselves or our rockets—at team meetings and games.
Our team emphasizes general consensus and buy-in on technical aspects and focuses on the success of each team member on an individual level. We call it “gadugi” (ᎦᏚᎩ) in Cherokee, which means “everyone helping each other.”
I also learned that embracing my culture provides better ways to approach engineering challenges. While many engineering environments promote top-down decision-making, our teams test and integrate as many ideas as possible to engage everyone, emphasizing general consensus and buy-in on the technical side while focusing on the personal success of each team member grade. we call it गागुगी (ᎦᏚᎩ) In Cherokee, it means “everyone helps each other.” We’ve found that it leads to better technical results and a better experience for everyone on the team.
I feel very fortunate to be able to work closely with other Aboriginal students on engineering projects that we all care deeply about. I respect the senior members of the team and see in them evidence of what Indigenous students at MIT can do and accomplish. I enjoy mentoring new members, passing on what I have learned to them, and helping them achieve great results.
Our launch weekends further expand our community and allow us to work with inspiring homegrown engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Blue Origin. I met my heroes and saw that it was possible to succeed in aerospace engineering as a Native American. In fact, my FNL experience has helped me land a great internship. Last summer, ten years after I focused on aerospace engineering at Space Camp, I returned to Huntsville to serve as a lunar payload intern aboard Blue Origin’s Mark I lunar lander.
Through the FNL team, my technical skills have improved significantly. During our first year at the forefront of our systems and simulations, I integrated all components of the physical design into a cohesive computer model that was accurate in both geometry and mass distribution. From this model I could run simulated flights while adjusting various launch conditions and trying different engines. Small changes in the ground can result in large changes in the final height, which must be within a specific range, so analysis drives the overall design.
In our first year, the challenge was to redesign the rocket kit while making it lighter by making all the parts ourselves (mostly using hand-laid carbon fiber and fiberglass). We finished second and were named Rookie Team of the Year.
In 2023-’24, our challenge was to build a rocket large enough to carry a deployable drone, which resulted in building a 7.5-inch-diameter fuselage. We also had to design and build the drone’s chassis to meet exacting specifications: It had to fit inside the rocket on the launch pad, deploy at apogee (our altitude was 2,136 feet), and deploy from a compact stowed configuration to 16 x 16 inches, lower the parachute to 500 feet, then release the parachute to navigate to the landing site. To meet FAA requirements, two of our team members studied and obtained Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificates so they could operate drones.
Since this new challenge required us to design and build the drone at the same time as building the rocket, we split into two groups and worked in parallel. This approach requires precise coordination between sub-teams to ensure everything is integrated well into the final release. As captain, I manage this coordination while also participating in the technical aspects as systems and simulation lead and airframe lead. As we moved through project milestones from proposal to flight readiness review, we kept in mind that we needed both an operational drone and a safe flight to the correct altitude to meet the challenge.
In April, our team traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to test our rocket. We loaded up the parachute and payload, gave it some meds, and sent our hard work up into the sky. But when I went to load the motor, the motor bracket fell out of my hands. We quickly went to the range safety officer, who added a last-minute external motor mount that saved our rocket and launch. After that minor (but almost catastrophic) delay, we launched safely and successfully recovered, and were awarded the Next Step Award, a $15,000 grant to participate in the Collegiate Launch Program on behalf of FNL, This is a NASA-sponsored competition open to all for the 2024–’25 season.
Six weeks later, when the grand final winners were announced, we were delighted to learn that we had won the grand prize! In addition to bragging rights, we also won a VIP trip to the Kennedy Space Center in August to walk through the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building, explore the Space Shuttle landing strip, and tour Polaris Dawn On the launch pad, watch the Starlink satellites launch from the beach in the early morning.
This year, I am honored to serve as team captain again, leading an expanded team through the challenges of a new student initiation program. I’m already looking forward to May when we launch the rocket, and we’ll continue to improve between now and then. To respect our Aboriginal heritage and send it into the sky with kindness, I will make sure we smudge before flying.
Hailey Polson ’26 is an aerospace major, citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and captain of MIT’s Native launch team.
2024-12-23 21:00:00