Common Acronyms and Definitions

Here are some common acronyms from STAR, NASA, or engineering in general. There's no shame in not knowing something! Please correct this if something is wrong/unclear or add it if it's missing.

Term/Acronym	Full Phrase	Explanation
ABS	Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene	A 3D printing plastic made from Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, and Styrene polymers.
BFO	Bear Force One	The name of STAR's IREC 2020 rocket. This is also our 2021 entry due to the competition being postponed.
BOM	Bill of Materials	A list of the materials that go in to an engineering assembly or design.
CAD	Computer Aided Design	The usage of computer software (i.e. SolidWorks) to design parts or assemblies.
CAM	Computer Aided Machining	The use of a computer program to plan toolpaths, usually for waterjet or CNC, but sometimes used in the context of additive manufacturing.
CAS	Common Avionics System	This is a STAR acronym for our modular electronics stack devloped by Avionics and the associated missions to qualify it for flight. Usable for liquid engine control, radio, flight data monitoring, and pyrogen ignition.
CDR	Critical Design Review	A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a final design and technical challenges that may occur in the fabrication and testing process.
CFD	Computational Fluid Dynamics	Using a computer to analyze the movement of a liquid in a specific instance. Common uses include engine propellant flow and wing lift analyses.
CNC	Computer Numeric Control	Basically, using a computer to control the motion of a manufacturing machine, most commonly a mill, lathe, or waterjet cutter. Sometimes used to describe additive manufacturing / 3D printing.
CONOPS	Concept of Operations	A time-sequenced description of the steps of a mission and how they are to be performed at a high level.
DAVE	Deployable Aerial Vehicle Experiment	A deployable glider payload intended to fly in a 6" diameter airframe, likely Bear Force One (see: BFO).
FEA (also FEM)	Finite Element Analysis or Modelling or Method	Using a computer program to calculate the strength of a mechanical part and its resistance to different load cases.
FRR (also MRR)	Flight/Mission Readiness Review	A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a project's readiness for launch and evaluate the rigor of its design, construction, and testing.
GD&T	Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing	An engineering practice to precisely specify how a part should be shaped or constructed.
GM	General Meeting	Meeting of the entire club.
IREC (also SAC)	Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition or Spaceport America Cup	A custom rocket design competition run by ESRA.
LE1	Liquid Engine 1	A "simple" liquid engine test article designed to hotfire on an accelerated schedule
LE2	Liquid Engine 2	A more complex multi-year liquid engine project with the goal of producing a test article that is viable or close to viable for integration and flight.
NASA SL (also SLI, USLI)	NASA (University) Student Launch (Initiative)	The largest and most well-known collegiate rocketry competition. Run by NASA out of Marshall Space Flight Center, it follows the NASA design review process through the entire competition.
PDR	Preliminary Design Review	A step of the NASA design review process intended to assess a design's architecture and what problems may arise from it in very broad strokes.
PDM	Product Data Management	A tool used to keep track of revisions to data, files and other project-related information. Examples include Grabcad workbench and GitHub.
PLA	Polylactic Acid	Another very common 3D printing plastic.
PLAR	Post Launch Assessment Review	In STAR, this is a document filled out after a launch or major test reviewing whether we met mission goals and why/why not.
PRR	Production Readiness Review	A review of CAD, manufacturing drawings and other manufacturing artifacts like 3D printing toolpaths to ensure that parts are manufacturable and correctly toleranced.
SSEP	Stage Separation (Demonstrator)	STAR mission to develop and mature stage separation technology within the club.
SW	SolidWorks	A CAD and FEA tool with free educational licenses. It is our team's primary CAD software.