Epic Cluster into October Skies

One response to “Epic Cluster into October Skies”

1. 

   jurvetson

   Oct 28, 2012 at 3:15 pm

   Pre-launch (thanks for the photo Erik!)
   
   The RF tracker is on the ground to the left and the vertical Pad Cam is on top of the white box.

   View from the Pad Cam:
   
   Although all igniters were wired in parallel off the same control, one motor was late coming up to pressure.

   .03 seconds later:
   

   Climbing. The central motor is coming up to pressure, popping the red retention cap off to the right:
   
   and the next frame is the main one above, a quarter-second later.

   Zooming off into the sun, with a mighty plume-to-rocket ratio:
   

   And we recovered the rocket unharmed off in the distance. The on-board computer deployed a tiny chute at apogee (fortunately small, as it serves a sudden air brake when there is still a large horizontal component of velocity, and that can zipper the airframe) and the main chute at 800 ft. on the baro sensor.

   Overall, a decent follow up to the rocket rodeo on the first attempt.

   Lessons learned on this one: use a longer rail, and fin-tip motors with higher thrust. At prior launches, we had great success with G75 MetalStorm fin motors, and this was our first flight with the longer-burning G40 and G38 Blackjacks. We will go back to the G75’s for the next flight.

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