Rocket Mavericks

For my last rocket-centric post, let me show the big project that I helped with, from a new prefecture for civilian space explorers, called Rocket Mavericks....

She lept off the pad with a glorious 30 ft. plume.

Computer simulations estimated she would scream to 100,000 ft. at Mach 3

⢠22 ft. tall, 540 lbs
⢠Booster stage: machined aluminum fin can and inter-stage coupler mounted directly on the Q motor casing.
⢠Upper stage: Custom wound composites, titanium tip
⢠Festooned with redundant computers, GPS, RF transmission
⢠Q booster staging to a P motor with a custom forward thermite igniter
⢠~6x the thrust of a cruise missile booster

Here's my 1-minute Launch Video (airborne footage edited down; it took longer to return than the video run time), and here's a final test video where Tom detonates the separation charge to make sure the machined aluminum structures will work to separate the booster and sustainer stages of the rocket.

Upper Stage, Motors & machining, RockSim of flight, upper stage test, team photo:

Here is a fun video montage from the weekend.