Proteus 7 Carmack Prize Launch

17 responses to “Proteus 7 Carmack Prize Launch”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Oct 14, 2011 at 12:08 am

   Ignition
   

   And 6.2 seconds in, the swan song unfolds:
   . .

   

   Heartbreaker to see the airframe free falling.

   P.S. While Derek’s rocket earlier that weekend did successfully take video to 121K ft., they did not get a GPS lock up there, a requirement for the prize. Commercial GPS systems are programmed to shut down for supersonic motion over 60K ft. altitudes, so the prize contenders may need to do a bit of firmware hacking. =)

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2. 

   Astrocatou

   Oct 14, 2011 at 1:02 am

   Wow…that "prize" link is good stuff !

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3. 

   Pieces of Eye

   Oct 14, 2011 at 1:24 am

   Really? What law that requires a GPS to behave like that? Are there other constraints on GPS receivers?

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4. 

   solerena

   Oct 14, 2011 at 1:56 am

   yep, these are musical in their own way…

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5. 

   WF&DT

   Oct 14, 2011 at 2:39 am

   PoE: yes, to prevent their use in ballistic weapons.

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6. 

   photon~wave

   Oct 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm

   [http://www.flickr.com/photos/physicsman] "In GPS technology, the phrasing "COCOM Limits" is also used to refer to a limit placed to GPS tracking devices that should disable tracking when the device realizes itself to be moving faster than 1,000 knots (1,900 km/h; 1,200 mph) at an altitude higher than 60,000 feet (18,000 m). This was intended to avoid the use of GPS in intercontinental ballistic missile-like applications.

   Some manufacturers apply this limit literally (disable when both limits are reached), other manufacturers disable tracking when a single limit is reached."

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7. 

   Astrocatou

   Oct 14, 2011 at 12:38 pm

   You guys can’t build your own GPS receivers (yet)…?
   I am astonished…

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8. 

   mrsoeil

   Oct 14, 2011 at 5:31 pm

   oh yes this is so very cool.

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9. 

   Pieces of Eye

   Oct 14, 2011 at 10:19 pm

   Yeah there must be a firmware hack for that. Of course if its that easy to hack the COCOM limit is kinda pointless.

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10. 

    jurvetson

    Oct 15, 2011 at 1:31 am

    it’s kinda worrisome how our only defense sometimes is that the enemies of progress are, almost by definition, enemies of science. I guess it’s one of the ironies of a growing intellectual rich-poor gap.

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11. 

    Astrocatou

    Oct 15, 2011 at 2:00 am

    Why not just set the GPS unit on a timer to turn on at (close to) apogee…?
    Keep the free world safe and get your altitude recording too?

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12. 

    Pieces of Eye

    Oct 15, 2011 at 3:01 am

    I’m keeping the poor intellectual alive 🙂

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13. 

    rocketmavericks

    Oct 15, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    A couple comments –

    On GPS, there are a number of us who have built custom GPS units for just this application. GPS restrictions are a complicated problem. Most consumer devices are designed for commercial applications in your car or while hiking, so many vendors just do not use high performance cores. They often disable the devices in software to stop reporting numbers, even though the chips may have not lost lock. Second are units where there or no software reporting lockouts, but there are ITAR co-comm restrictions to which have been discussed. Finally, you can get these removed on specific chipsets from specific vendors with state department ITAR regulatory commitments, but they are not cheap. ABout $1-2K per chip, and generally not a volume market so most vendors do not support. Finally you have to deal with doppler slewing on reporting which is compensation on the clock timing signal due to doppler compression of the carrier signal lock from the GPS sat and your receiver component on board. Mavericks has a GPS system with telemetry we developed last year with co-comm restrictions removed that could work for this application and we are updating it for the slewing problem for overcoming the doppler shift, but the Carmack prize is not large enough for the task they are asking people to risk time, $$$ and efforts and an airframe and propellant to go after. I think Derek should get the prize as there is no question from the baro altimeter and video that he accomplished the challenge. The GPS requirement is bogus and makes the challenge economically unattractive. If it was say $100K prize, then I think the economics works and the challenge will have already been achieved.

    Finally, the Proteus 6.5 lost a fin which caused the flight anomoly. The rockets performance otherwise looked pretty good and they probably could have taken the prize. Its amazing what bites you when you attempt these flights. We lost a vehicles last summer over about $0.43 cents in screws that cost us about $20K in airframe and electronics and payload and vehicle components.

    So Steve……

    When are you flying your Q motor just like the one in the Proteus 7? Have you considered going after the prize? You have the motor. Just need to build a rocket around it and get the right GPS unit.

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14. 

    jurvetson

    Oct 15, 2011 at 11:39 pm

    Can’t wait!

    Need to make a nose cone to your CFD-modeled specs…. and a 360°-quad-video bay to stitch together a roll-free video path….

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15. 

    Pieces of Eye

    Oct 16, 2011 at 2:10 am

    I may be wrong but I think the second panel of the sequence shows the detached fin.

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16. 

    Astrocatou

    Oct 17, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    It seems CERN is having GPS problems too
    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394747,00.asp#fbid=UotSHz-...

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17. 

    curtmr4

    Oct 20, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    Steve:

    Many thanks for posting your excellent photos of the P 7 launch. All we needed was another two seconds and I believe we would have had a 130K plus flight. But it did not happen.

    I believe that our on board GPS would have recorded altitude above 100K feet. There is always next year using a different airframe and modified fin design.

    Regards,

    C. Newport

    Reply