|
June
30, 2003
Canadian
Dauphin Launch... The advanced amateur rocketry Team
"O" Canada succeeded at launching the largest amateur rocket
in Canadian history last Saturday (June.28th) : Rocketeers
blast into record book: Calgary team basks in success - canada.com
- June.29.03 . The 300lb (~140kg), 16 1/2 foot (~5m) rocket
reached an altitude fo 5500ft (~1.7km) and parachuted unscathed
to the ground. [Via a Slashdot
posting]
June
27, 2003
Aerospike
update ... See the
RLV
News item for more about the CSULB/Garvey Space test.
June
24, 2003
Student
aerospike test success... See the RLV
News item about the CSULB/Garvey Space test.
June
21, 2003
Aerospike
tests presently ... Garvey
Space and Cal
State Long Beach have indefinitely postponed the next Prospector
launch because of the mess with the Homeland Security Act according
to the latest
news. Instead they will "conduct a static fire test of
CSULB’s re-designed 1000lbf-thrust, LOX-ethanol ablative aerospike
engine." The test could occur as early as today. If so I hope
it went well and that they will post the details soon.
Flometrics
news... The Flometrics
website has gotten a nice makeover that allows easier access
to information on their rocket tests and fuel pump projects. The
company collaborates with students at San
Diego State University
on the pump and on a sounding rocket with a gimbaled engine.
Since Steve
Harrington gave his talk at the Space
Access ' 03 meeting, they've made some progress on their
innovative pistonless fuel pump. A test
on May 23th used the pump with kerosene on a 1000 lbf thrust
Atlas Vernier LR-101 LOX/Kerosene rocket engine. A fuel leak occurred
but due to the pump's design, no catastrophic failure happened.
( A pdf
paper and ppt
presentation are available about the pump.)
June
13, 2003
News
briefs ... Bill Colburn of SORAC
gets profiled in Pipe
Dreams: A veteran of the Apollo program continues a quixotic quest
to send a small rocket of his own design 60 miles high and, in the
process, save his soul. Maybe ours, too. by Tommy Craggs - SF Weekly
- June.13.03 (via ERPS)...
...
Dan DeLong discusses the XCOR engine ignitor design in the cover
story for the June
issue of Sport
Aviation : The
EZ-Rocket No, really, we’re not kidding! - Sports Aviation - June.03
(pdf, 212kb) .
June
10, 2003
Solid
restrictions...
RocketForge
reports that the Reaction
Research Society has "suspended the handling of all solid
rocket propellants until they decide what effects the Homeland Security
Act has on their activities": Two
Homeland Security Updates - RocketForge - June.9.03
June
9, 2003
Real
time Linux for rocketry...
This article Linux
Rocket Hits the Launch Pad - Wired - June.9.03 discusses the
use of Linux by the Portland
State Aerospace Society (PSAS) for their rockets.
June
3, 2003
Paragon
launches... We mentioned earlier
that the company Orbital
Expressways would be carrying out two launches for Paragon
Labs. However, the item made it seem that the rockets were from
Orbital Expressways.
Kevin Sagis
of Paragon Labs ask us to make clear that it is Paragon's Dragoon
rocket that will be launched and that Orbital Expressways is only
providing the range services.
The inaugural
flight of the Dragoon will occur in the next month with a second
flight occuring late this year.
May
30, 2003
Prospector
launches upcoming... According to the Garvey
Spacecraft Corp (GSC) website, GSC and the Cal State Long Beach
group will have a busy summer:
- "The
Prospector 3 Flight Test - 2 is tentatively scheduled for the
weekend of 21 June 2003, pending FAA waiver approval."
- "Aerospike
Static Fire Test - 2 anticipated in mid to late June 2003"
- "Prospector
4 first flight is targeted for early Summer 2003."
The Prospector
3 "flight will address thrust vector control (TVC) issues and
will include evaluation of a candidate flight controller and associated
inertial measurement sensors operating in an open-loop data acquisition
mode." It will carry a "payload developed by USC students
involved in the USC
Microsatellite Program and a MEMS propulsion device developed
by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)."
The Prospector
3 flew once before in February
2003 (more info & photos at at CSULB.)
It was supposed to fly again on the weekend of May 3-4 but the launch
was canceled due to bad weather. See the news item at CSULB.
The flights occur on the " Mojave Test Area owned and operated
by the Reaction Research
Society (RRS)."
Note that Garvey's
Kimbo series of rockets has now been merged into the Prospector
series.
May
27, 2003
Students
reuse Starboosters... see RLV
News item.
Students
fire Q motor... Students from Casper
College and the Natrona County School District in Wyoming recently
carried out a successful firing of a "Q" class ammonium nitrate
composite propellant motor : Casper
College/NCSD Rocket Motor Static Firing - Wickman - May.26.03.
The motor is
intended to power the first stage of the Pathfinder
Rocket, a joint project with The University of Cincinnati, whose
students will build the payload. A launch of the rocket from Wallops
Island is currently planned for this June.
Note that this
puts the Wyoming group one letter up on the Florida Jamstar
students who recently launched a rocket with a P motor. If this
competition keeps up, they will be launching rockets capable of
reaching the each other's state pretty soon!
May
22, 2003
Open
source rocketry update ... With regard to the ARocket
Igniter project mentioned below, Andrew Case reports that the he
is participating in the project but the design is not directly related
to his Felix Igniter 0.5. The group currently involves
"three people actively building hardware on parallel tracks".
Eventually they will "select the best ideas and combine them
into a common design". The people actively building hardware
are Jamie Morken, Duncan McDonald, and Andrew.
May
21, 2003
Open
source rocketry... Michael Mealling at Rocketforge
reports on a project that will attempt a software-like open source
approach to developing rocket hardware : The
ARocket Igniter Project - RocketForge - May.19.03. The project
will pursue further development of an engine ignitor - Felix
Ignitor 0.5 - first designed and built by Andrew Case. [See
update above
- May.22.03]
This and other
open hardware projects can be found at the Rocketworkbench
Project site
which includes a blog that will report on progress with the
project : HV
Igniter Project Web Log - Duncan McDonald.
May
14, 2003
Loki
launch goes well at the South Texas spaceport :
(I typically
find these kinds of links to local papers at Jeff Foust's spacetoday.net.)
May
13, 2003
Super
Loki launch scheduled for today at the South Texas Spaceport
will be run by Gem Technologies, a NASA contractor. Texas
Spacelines and some other groups will be putting up some displays
about rocketry but not actively involved in the launch.
Hundreds
expected to witness first Super Loki launch in Texas - AP/Houston
Chronicle - May.13.03 * 2-stage
rocket would soar up to 50 miles high, 3,500 mph - Valley Morning
Star
New
sounding rocket company ... The launch company Orbital
Expressways will carry out two suborbital missions this year
for another small space development company called Paragon
Labs :
Unfortunately,
their web site doesn't provide any details on their vehicle. The
Paragon company has its own rocket called the Dragoon
under development.
May
6, 2003
Super
Loki rocket launch on May 13th - Rocket
set to launch from South Texas next week - HoustonChronicle.com
- May.6.03 (link found at spacetoday.net).
The rocket "will travel 50 miles into the atmosphere at 3,500
mph and will be directed over water."
I believe that
the Texas
Spacelines group is running this launch.[May.13.03 - No they
are not. See above.]
Super Loki sounding
rocket info can be found at Michigan
Tech Physics Dept, Michigan
Rockets for Schools, & Directory
of US Rockets & Missiles.
May
5 , 2003
Amateur
Spaceflight Association
launches a solid fueled 18ft (~5.5m) rocket from Texas spaceport
to 11,241 feet (3.4km) : Test
rocket takes amateurs a step closer - HoustonChronicle.com - May.3.03
to space * Dream
takes flight from spaceport [site] - thefacts.com [Brazoria County
Texas] - May.4.03
Igniting
old book sales... Saw this at ERPS:
The book Ignition!
An informal history of liquid rocket propellants by John D.
Clark, 1972 is now available at Books
on Demand. This is a new kind of service that will make a legal
copy of an out-of-print book for a fee. They seem to have a limited
offering at the moment but perhaps they will eventually provide
a bigger selection. I'm heard that there are a number of excellent
out-of-print rocketry books from the 1950s and 1960s that are still
quite useful today.
Continue
to April 30, 2003
|
