I am Nitish Chennoju

I started at UCI Rocket Project as an avionics engineer after transferring from Arizona State, retrofitting the avionics to work with the developing engine and building GUIs to track engine state. Early noise issues with cheap RS485 chips caused random solenoid switching; combined with fluids issues (main valves freezing, chill problems), our first vertical static-fire attempt (VTF #1) was scrubbed.

I was then promoted to Chief Engineer and made myself a promise to see the project through to launch. I rebuilt the comms system on Ethernet — far more noise-resilient, and it let anyone on the launch network view engine status from any device. I set ambitious deadlines across subteams, got deeply involved in every subsystem, and became the prime contact for reviewing test data — cutting procedure run-time from a full day to 3–4 hours.

That paid off at VTF #2, the longest burn of the engine. We then packaged everything into a launch vehicle and launched UCI's first liquid rocket — a record 13.5-second burn to an apogee of ~9,300 ft. Unfortunately the struts snapped on parachute deployment, so recovery was only partial.