Ostia

Everything NEAL builds ends up bolted down and fired horizontally. Ostia is the modular steel static-fire stand that holds the Remus motor, takes the thrust, and records the burn.

I designed it in SolidWorks around 1,000 lbf of thrust with a 2.5 factor of safety, then took it into Ansys to see where that is actually met. The thrust wall and gussets pass with room to spare. The load-cell flexures and the 1/4 in base plate fall short, so the load-cell mounting is being redesigned along with the rocket clamp. A test stand is the one part of the program where surprise has no upside.

A static fire lasts seconds, and afterwards the data is the only witness. The stand carries a 2,000 lbf load cell on the thrust axis and thermocouples on the chamber, sampled fast enough to catch the ignition transient and the shape of the thrust curve, not just its peak.