Erik’s 2-Stage Ballistic Beauty

With glorious finishing and meticulous preparation…. I caught it coming down right in front us.

From where I was standing, everything seemed to go up well…. (sequence below)…. But the quick burn motor burst out of the airframe right above the fins, and that large rupture hole meant that the computer-triggered parachute deployment charge vented outward instead of deploying the chute. So the booster came back as a big yellow lawn dart.

The upper stage ignited and flew perfectly. And luckily, the booster airframe damage will be quite simple to repair with a coupler and new fiberglass body tube.

That’s Erik on the left and Aaron on the right, a frequent helper for the big projects.