This is the work completed by Rice Eclipse's RF Communications team.
RF Communications aims to build a long-range wireless communications system to interface with Real-Time-Rocket (RTR), Eclipse's custom flight instruments package, and receive telemetry data from RTR during flight.
The work completed by Eclipse's Flight Instruments team in developing RTR can be found here.
NARWAL, or Long-range Amplified Wireless Radio for Aerial Navigation, is Eclipse's custom ground station PCB with radio communications capabilities.
NARWAL is designed to communicate with RTR from a range of at least 30,000 feet. While primarily intended to receive data, NARWAL is designed to be capable of both transmission and reception, and to amplify both transmitted and received signals.
NARWAL v1 was designed during the Fall 2022 semester, and will be assembled during the Spring 2023 semester. Eclipse plans to deploy NARWAL alongside [Unnamed Antenna] and RTR during the launch of Eclipse's Icarus & Daedalus rocket at the Spaceport America Cup in June 2023.
During the Spring 2023 semester, RF Communications will design and construct a custom antenna to be used with NARWAL.