Copenhagen Suborbital

Does anybody know the status of the launch? The live video is showing a TV reporter on one of the boats, but I can't figure out what's going on.

There are still a few people on the launch platform. It appears that they are fueling the rocket. There is a white cloud coming out of the side of the rocket about half-way up. It might be the LOX venting out? It looks like things are go for a launch.

Exciting!

I was able to see the video from mission control. The launch looked good. I saw some video of them recovering the upper portion of the rocket a few minutes later.

There wasn't much APRS data -- only 4 APRS packets are shown around the time of the launch. The last packet has GPS coordinates that are 0.1 minutes of longitude further south than the ealier packets. That should be only about 180 meters away -- 40,000km/(360*60*10). Somebody mentioned 2.8 km horizontal travel on the Twitter feed.

I don't know what altitude it achieved. Hopefully, we'll get a press release from them with all the details.

EDIT: There is a lauch video posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2XrbFRqYds . I saw some comments somewhere that booster separation occurred at an altitude of 2.8 km, and the maximum altitude was 16 km.

This may be one of my fav photos ever! If I was them I would have a large poster on my wall!

According to an article on Rocketry Planet, they achieved a maximum altitude of 2.8 km, which is short of the 15 to 16 km they were hoping for. It's a great achievement even at 2.8 km.

Rob I must also say is that I enjoy this image also, how cool as you say would it be to have these as posters!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_QxXT60_J4

This is a cool video.

Iain

Is it just me or does that booster seem to be tumbling?

The rocket was not sufficiently aerodynamically stable. Stability analysis on big rockets is not as straightforward as it is on HPR or hobby rockets, especially with extremely rare features like the aerospike.

So whats the next step for them then?

A decent fin guidance system? Doesn't look like the (I think) passive fin system worked well enough to keep the thing pointing upwards.

Mission results until now.

The rocket launched at the second try. The first was scrubbed because of a not all systems clear. At the launch the rocket was accelerating at 3,7 g well within the tolerable range. The rocket was spinning very slowly with one round every 5-8 seconds. The effectiveness of the antiroll system (rollerons on the wings) surprised the group. The rocket broke the sound barrier and ended up flying mach 2. The engine oscillated with at frequency of about 9 hz. After 10 seconds the FIDO system (realtime trajectory calculation) showed that the rocket was so much off course that the flightdirector decided to cut off the engine. At T+15 sec the engine shut off and after T+26 the rocket passed its apogee. At T+32 sec the flighedirector separated the spaceship from the rocket and 3 sec later he released the drogue and main parachutes to test the systems and save the spaceship. Because off the flat trajectory the speed at apogee was much higher than the parachutes was designed to withstand and they were ripped to peace’s.

What was left off the parchutes slowed down the spaceship to about 200 kmh before reaching the sea. From T+45 the spaceship was falling before it reached the water at T+1:26. It hit the water with a shock of >26 G and a second time with 9 G. When the capsule hit water the top dome was pressed off and the spaceship filled with water. The guess is than an actual live astronaut could have survived the trip parachuting out before the spaceship hit the water.

Right now the best guess about the flat trajectory of the rocket is that the finns were very imprecise and the anti roll system too efficient. The group knew about the engine oscillations before flight but had so many systems that needed flight testing to be further improved that they went for a shot.

The main development now is a test engine, an active guidance system and a new spaceship. The first test engine will be a HEAT size vertical mounted engine with fuel enough to 4x15 sec burns. The active guidance system will be developed on HATV size rockets. Kristian have started designing a new spaceship and all the other systems will undergo improvements as well.

HEAT: High Explosive Anti Tank?

It seems that an acceleration of 3.7 g is pretty low for a passively guided rocket. Model and high power rockets typically require an acceleration of at least 5 g to acheive stability by the time they leave the launch rail.

If the 3.7 g includes the earth's gravitation acceleration, then the rocket's velocity is only increasing by 2.7 g. Of course, a low acceleration can be offset by using a longer launch rail.