Tension is in the air - the 2 stage rocket is getting armed
Thank you for visiting - ❤ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
We are just back from a 3 day rocket event in the Black Rock Desert. It was Balls, the Wild West event of rocketry, with large and dangerous rockets. My son got invited to help prepare the most spectacular rocket, a two stage rocket that was designed to reach 200,000 feet altitude. I was invited to be the official photographer. Due to dangerously large motors, this rocket's launch pad was 3 miles away from the camp. Only a few people could see the preparation and launch up close.
This photo shows the owner of the rocket standing on the ladder and arming the rocket.
Spec of the rocket:
- two stage rocket built by Jim Jarvis from Texas
- total weight of rocket 250 lb
- booster (first stage) has a P motor built by Stu Barrett
- sustainer (second stage) has an O motor, made by CTI
- electronics: Stratologger, live flight status update by Kate
The booster flight was nominal, The sustainer flight was initially nominal, then Kate announced an anomaly at 40K+ feet altitude- the sustainer seems to have shredded at burnout at Mach 3.72. The cause of anomaly is not known at this time. The booster was recovered successfully.
What a project! Kudos to Jim and team for the achievement, even though it did not go as planned! As we all know from SpaceX, rocketry is hard. Jim had a multi page checklist, and everything was done very methodically. Hats off!
I processed a balanced HDR photo from an iPhone image, and carefully adjusted the curves.
-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 exposure, iPhone 6 Plus, IMG_7657_hdr1bal1b
Tension is in the air - the 2 stage rocket is getting armed
Thank you for visiting - ❤ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.
We are just back from a 3 day rocket event in the Black Rock Desert. It was Balls, the Wild West event of rocketry, with large and dangerous rockets. My son got invited to help prepare the most spectacular rocket, a two stage rocket that was designed to reach 200,000 feet altitude. I was invited to be the official photographer. Due to dangerously large motors, this rocket's launch pad was 3 miles away from the camp. Only a few people could see the preparation and launch up close.
This photo shows the owner of the rocket standing on the ladder and arming the rocket.
Spec of the rocket:
- two stage rocket built by Jim Jarvis from Texas
- total weight of rocket 250 lb
- booster (first stage) has a P motor built by Stu Barrett
- sustainer (second stage) has an O motor, made by CTI
- electronics: Stratologger, live flight status update by Kate
The booster flight was nominal, The sustainer flight was initially nominal, then Kate announced an anomaly at 40K+ feet altitude- the sustainer seems to have shredded at burnout at Mach 3.72. The cause of anomaly is not known at this time. The booster was recovered successfully.
What a project! Kudos to Jim and team for the achievement, even though it did not go as planned! As we all know from SpaceX, rocketry is hard. Jim had a multi page checklist, and everything was done very methodically. Hats off!
I processed a balanced HDR photo from an iPhone image, and carefully adjusted the curves.
-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 exposure, iPhone 6 Plus, IMG_7657_hdr1bal1b