This is our notice of a successful attempt to claim the Carmack Prize for an amateur flight above 100K'. Our flight on Tuesday 9/11/2012 reached 104659' AGL as verified by both the onboard Beeline GPS as well as APRS telemetry from the airframe that was streamed in real-time to the APRS database. The flight track for the sustainer is at KG6DLV-4 and the booster is KG6DLV-5 at aprs.net.
The airframe is a two-stage, minimum-diameter design. Construction is primarily of commercially-available fiberglass components with carbon-laminated fins.
Architecture: Two stage minimum diameter - 4" booster to 3" sustainer
Motors: Commercial motors. Aerotech N1000 in booster staging to Aerotech M685 in sustainer. 25 second total burn time.
Total impulse: 21,650 ns
Length: 126"
Pad weight: 61 lbs
Avionics: (Raven+RDAS, Beeline GPS (70cm APRS), GoPro2 + WiFi BacPac) replicated in booster and sustainer
Payload: Smartphone+sensors with 2m APRS telemetry
Launcher: 12' rail
We flew at Black Rock, NV, during the AeroPac ARLISS and XPRS events, September 11, 2012. We had full recovery of the airframe within 6 hours - both booster and sustainer. We flew the same stack today, Thursday 9/13/2012 on an N1000 staging to a CTI M840. However, the CTI motor failed - while it burned completely it generated no thrust. The airframe was again recovered intact and flight ready. We intend fly again with a replacement sustainer motor on Saturday 9/15/2012 and plan to again webcast the video of the launch as well as real-time telemetry of the flight from the AeroPac web site (www.aeropac.org).
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 15.9 ms ] threadThis is our notice of a successful attempt to claim the Carmack Prize for an amateur flight above 100K'. Our flight on Tuesday 9/11/2012 reached 104659' AGL as verified by both the onboard Beeline GPS as well as APRS telemetry from the airframe that was streamed in real-time to the APRS database. The flight track for the sustainer is at KG6DLV-4 and the booster is KG6DLV-5 at aprs.net.
The airframe is a two-stage, minimum-diameter design. Construction is primarily of commercially-available fiberglass components with carbon-laminated fins.
Architecture: Two stage minimum diameter - 4" booster to 3" sustainer
Motors: Commercial motors. Aerotech N1000 in booster staging to Aerotech M685 in sustainer. 25 second total burn time.
Total impulse: 21,650 ns
Length: 126"
Pad weight: 61 lbs
Avionics: (Raven+RDAS, Beeline GPS (70cm APRS), GoPro2 + WiFi BacPac) replicated in booster and sustainer Payload: Smartphone+sensors with 2m APRS telemetry Launcher: 12' rail
We flew at Black Rock, NV, during the AeroPac ARLISS and XPRS events, September 11, 2012. We had full recovery of the airframe within 6 hours - both booster and sustainer. We flew the same stack today, Thursday 9/13/2012 on an N1000 staging to a CTI M840. However, the CTI motor failed - while it burned completely it generated no thrust. The airframe was again recovered intact and flight ready. We intend fly again with a replacement sustainer motor on Saturday 9/15/2012 and plan to again webcast the video of the launch as well as real-time telemetry of the flight from the AeroPac web site (www.aeropac.org).
Ken Biba - Team/Technical Lead
Casey Barker - Project Manager
Erik Ebert
Becky Green
Jim Green
David Raimondi
Tom Rouse
Steve Wigfield