Part 1, 30 June, 2004
By Mark Uitendaal and Leon Krancher

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Disclaimer: all liability waved! The contents of this page is presented for informational purposes only. Do not try to recreate any experiments presented in this page. The NAVRO and the author of this article cannot assume responsibility for any use readers make of this information. In The Netherlands it is forbidden by law to own this type of propellant if you do not have an exemption of the "Wet Explosieven Civiel Gebruik" (WECG).

After our staging adventure with the test platform "Shock and Awe" at NLD19, it was time to make a rocket which could go "high". The rocket will consist of two parts. One part is the rocket itself; the other part will be the "expendable booster". Both parts will approximately have the same aerodynamics characteristics and approximately the same mass. This is done to counter inertial and drag separation.

The rocket will carry a video with transmitter, so we can watch the launch and the stage-separation in real time. Also the rocket will have a small localizer transmitter in the nose cone. An audio localizer like a "rape alarm" will be incorporated in the vehicle. The vehicle will also have a two stage recovery system. First, at apogee, a drogue parachute will be deployed by a fully redundant commercial electronical system. Our intension will be to use an R-DAS module by AED Electronics and a PaDS module by our friend Thiemo van Engelen. The drogue will give our rocket a descent velocity of about 15 to 20 metres per second. This is way over the maximum ground impact velocity of the rocket. At a designated altitude (probably 250 metres or so) we will fire the main parachute which will give the vehicle a descent-velocity of gently 5 to 8 metre per second. The length of the rocket will be approximately 2 metres. It will be powered by our own reliable J420-SB originally from the Spectre I project. The motor has proven itself in the launch of the Spectre I and the first stage of the Shock and Awe. In the launch of the Shock and Awe we encountered a little problem with the separation, and we have now learned that we need a very rapid starting motor for our second stage. In the September launch we hope to launch our Shock and Awe with a new igniter design for very rapid ignition, to maintain the desired flight path.

The expendable booster will be an unrecoverable PVC motor in the range of a full K motor. The total impulse will be approximately 2200Ns. It will have fins to give the whole vehicle some stability during its boost phase, and also during its separated flight, so it cannot damage the rocket. The booster will basically be just a tube with fins, our tested staging-coupler and a very big motor. This part of the vehicle will be approximately 800mm tall. The booster will give the rocket a velocity of about 170 metres per second and then separate from the rocket. After separation the booster will fly an unrecovered ballistic trajectory. The ground impact velocity will be in excess of 100 metres per second. In other words, it will not maintain structural integrity! Therefore the cost will be one of the main design parameters. We aim to produce this unit at the cost of less than 20 Euros.

After booster separation the rocket will then ignite its own motor and fly to maximal 1,4 kilometre. The rocket has full control over its own sustainer ignition. During the whole flight we fly with a real-time video downlink. In the design we positioned the camera in a downwards facing camera hatch which is attached to the rockets fin canister. This is done to maintain the downwards facing orientation during the whole flight and to shield our flight-computers from the electromagnetic radiation of our telemetry-transmitter.

Next part: Spectre II, part 2, 7 July, 2004

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