The Rocket Mavericks group has been busy. Their student Rocket Project, sponsored by Sony, resulted in a successful launch on July 23rd of the two-stage Beagle IV from Black Rock, Nevada.
The Maverick's newsletter says the rocket,
is reconfigurable by design to reach between 150,000 feet to a maximum height of up to 400,000 feet MSL (Mean Sea Level) depending upon launch propulsion configuration. The team lost a visual of the rocket at around 6 miles at motor burnout of the sustainer. Due to doppler shifts associated with supersonic flight in GPS communications, the GPS reporting locked out per U.S. Government COCOM restrictions on the chip, hindering the team from receiving real-time accurate GPS telemetry altitude readings mid-flight. The GPS was reacquired during descent at around 25,000 feet. The 1,100-pound rocket reached Mach 2.8, traveling nearly three times the speed of sound, successfully burning through both flight stages, and returning its payload embedded in the nosecone and payload section by parachute back to earth. Projected trajectory for apogee was over 147,000 ft MSL.
The rocket is also part of the Clotho Project, sponsored by Sony and Intel, which will involve students in a study of
[how] far off the earth's surface does life exist, and what is the nature of the organisms that live there?
Dave Ketchledge tells me that this week his site rocketengineer.bravehost.com is hosting a book sale event. Both The Next Shuttle and Rocket Science are on sale together for $25, a savings of $35. Both books represent 1400 pages of text and NASA Reports along with a space flight simulator. "No other set offers provides this affordable level of detail in rocketry."
For more than a millennium, farmers in this region’s baking flatlands have staged fertility rites to welcome May’s seasonal rains. But sometime after the introduction of gunpowder, people living in modern-day Thailand (and Laos) gained the ability to fire symbolic phalluses — rockets — into the clouds. According to superstition, an astral conception of sorts takes place in the sky, unleashing showers that loosen parched soil so that crop planting can commence.
Robert Watzlavick gives an update on his liquid fueled engine development project and shows this picture of an impressive looking blast shield on his test stand: Robert's Rocket Project
George Whittinghill has been Chief Technologist for Virgin Galactic, a program manager in propulsion projects at NASA and the Air Force, and was involved with AMROC.
Payton said Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets now go for between $120 million and about $165 million per flight, depending on the configuration needed.
Payton doesn't address the question of how DoD will deal with the Falcon 9 if SpaceX succeeds in plans to sell launches at substantially lower prices than the EELVs.
