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Europe's Biggest Amateur Rocket Completes Test-Firing
Michael Eriksen writes "The Danish amateur rocket group Copenhagen Suborbitals has successfully test fired their rocket (article in Danish). It is a 90,000 kW monster delivering a total of 140,000 N. According to the group, this is by far the biggest amateur rocket ever fired in Europe. The final goal is a manned (!) low-orbital flight."
..is 14000 kilograms force. So the total mass of your spacecraft at launch will be 7000kg (or less) if you want to accelerate at 1g initially. In practice you would want more that that so 3-4 tonnes is probably the limit for the whole spacecraft.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Why is this cute and interesting when done by a group of European amateurs and a global threat when done in North Korea?
No mod-points anymore.
+1 insightful
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Top Gear's Reliant Rocket was claimed to be the biggest non-commercial amateur rocket in Europe. The Danish rocket must be bigger, though the video shows only an engine test. Can you claim it to be a rocket test when there is only the engine?
....I thought of Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the roadrunner. If my memory servers, it didn't work out too well for Wile E. Coyote.
...because the North Koreans are militaristic nut cases and the Danes are not?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"this is by far the biggest amateur rocket ever fired in Europe"
but what about compared to the rest of the world?
Up-close videos from the test:
http://www.vimeo.com/3531197
Pretty cool stuff, the whole team is all smiles. What was tested is a scaled-up design from a smaller hybrid rocket motor. The fact that the burn was even and stable demonstrates that the motor design is sound, and the math checks out. As such the team remains confident that an atmospheric launch of either this specific rocket or its twin can be carried out by mid-summer. Also, work continues on scaling the design further for the HEAT booster with a body diameter of 60 centimeters (3 times the diameter of the HATV rocket tested yesterday). The goal of the HEAT booster program is to develop a safe, economical and environmentally friendly man-rated sub-orbital propulsion technology. On the www.copenhagensuborbitals.com website you can read about their miniature spacecraft that would sit atop HEAT and carry a would-be astronaut on a no doubt exciting suborbital flight.
If you look at the hi-speed movie, you can see that their exhaust nozzle ring gets blown off after a few seconds (no timestamp on the video). I love what they're doing, but they're not there yet unfortunately. Bart
...because the North Koreans are militaristic nut cases
And would you claim that the Americans less militaristic nut cases than the North Koreans?
(Rhetorical question - you need not answer I've already prejudged you by reading the second amendment).
video 2:02. Exhaust nozzle lives 2 seconds
I don't know actually because the hispeed timestamp is not showing. But the nozzle separates at 2 minutes 2 seconds on the video
Am I seeing apartment buildings in the background? Maybe they should do future tests in Greenland.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Those are the same guys who built the biggest amateur Submarine before. Bunch of swell fellows. http://www.uc3nautilus.dk/index.htm
Actually, no. The nozzle ring sits on for 10+ seconds.
At 00:34 in the video you can see it fly off, the distinct luminous object leaving the rocket, which ignites at 00:19. I'm no booster specialist (I work video and telemetry), but my understanding is that the booster team is satisfied that at the time of nozzle failure the expansion effect (produced or supported by the nozzle) is no longer required. In any case a thicker nozzle wall has already been drafted for the next test.
The high speed (1200fps) footage closeup (side view) is edited timewise; the whole thing takes about an hour to play back at 30fps. We'll be releasing a video with time codes and more data later this week.
Great that it's not an important failure for you guys. I'm really impressed with it. I didn't know there was such a professional amateur rocketry club in Europe. Way to go Danes :-)
The final goal is a manned (!) low-orbital flight.
The result could be some crispy Danish bacon.
Crispy bacon does not have bad taste. It's my favorite!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
The first guy to climb on board has The Right Stuff in spades !
Squirrel!
I can assure you that the Danes do have a record of invading their Southern near neighbours, and I believe the governments of the time were pretty totalitarian. If the Danes had that rocket capability in the 10th century AD, nobody would have heard of King Alfred. And we'd be making the Lego for them.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Canada? Mexico? Cuba?
IIRC, the USA has never nuked a neighboring nation.
So if it can reach low orbit, it's probably safe to assume that it could reach the US from there?
mmmm rocket cookies!!!
no text
Their goal is to go to the moon. Everyone knows that (!) is mooning someone, right?
Most of the stuff on
I for one welcome our new Danish overlords.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
The first guy to climb onboard and lift off won't see anything because the capsule is badly designed. Who's the loserboy nerd who drew it? The crew standing upright, and getting their blood drained from their brain because of the acceleration during the boost phase. Smart. Real smart. No g-suit is going to keep the blood where it belongs.
Mandatory: grab them by their scrawny necks/beat them up/bang their heads against the locker door until they faint/stick them heads down into an unflushed toilet/shit on their faces.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
To think for oneself does not mean to be contrarian for the sake of it, that would be stupid.
It does not mean ignoring countrywide living conditions similar to those in a Nazi Germany concentration camp for the inhabitants who behave and a Nazi Germany extinction camp for those who don't, that would be stupid.
It does not mean excusing a government simply because one can draw parallels and similarities to other governments, that would be stupid.
It does not mean that it is in any way acceptable to gamble with the lives of tens if not hundred of millions for the sake of moral relativism without any practical gain but bloodshed and/or worse.
It does not mean continuing to ignore the information available through kidnapped then freed South Koreans and Japanese as well as escaped North Koreans. Nor to ignore the material including covert recordings made by civilians amply illustrating what happens IN PUBLIC in North Korea (and to a lesser extent what happens to some North Koreans in China). Doing any of that would be extremely stupid.
The only people who shouldn't have problems with North Korea should be die-hard fascists in the political sense of the word, as opposed to using the word as a swearword (and using the word in a non-political sense would be... stupid).
Beyond rhetoric, what clear military action was done in the last 10 years by North Korea in which they destroyed any foreign military facility (or even civilian one) or even shoot down a rocket carrying a satellite ? I am sorry but I usually ignore both rhetoric (US/EU/North korea), Rhetoric is good for politic, but just at that, beyond that you have to look at the action. And lately from all 3 aforementioned only one did indeed have an aggressive stance toward other nation.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
They said manned, not pigged.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Lets see if Bill Stone is really as brave as he says :o
the other 4 launches that North Korea did claiming it to be about satellites showed that they were missle launches (as in distance), not straight up and down for a rocket. previous Truthfullness plays a big part of it. As it is, they have built one nuke that did not work correctly, but almost certainly showed enough that they could finish it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Never heard of 'long pork' ?
Squirrel!
The final goal is a manned (!) low-orbital flight.
So the company name is "Copenhagen Suborbitals" but their goal is an orbital flight? Or is this just a mistranslation of "sub-orbital"? Because the boosters they have proposed, even the largest "HEAT-4" has nowhere enough thrust to get into orbit.
What's the Matter with Denmark?
and
Denmark's Military Arrogance.
Apparently we can add legalized pot to the catalog of horrors you mention.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I can assure you that the Danes do have a record of invading their Southern near neighbours, and I believe the governments of the time were pretty totalitarian. If the Danes had that rocket capability in the 10th century AD, nobody would have heard of King Alfred. And we'd be making the Lego for them.
Who's King Alfred?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The summary says "The final goal is a manned (!) low-orbital flight." However, the name of the outfit is Copenhagen Suborbitals. I suspect that the summary is wrong, and these guys are trying for an X-Prize mission: straight up 100 km and then back down again.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Yeah, because pigged space missions are easy. You just need a cannon: http://englishrussia.com/?p=700
My UID is prime. Hah!
I really think this is all very interesting stuff. Backyard rocket design, I really wonder what comes out of it. The coolest would be if these amateurs (or any other hobby-group) would manage to lift and safely return to earth a person.
Mostly I expect this can give an enormous boost to general rocketry due to cost savings. After all we're talking about amateurs here, who thus do this in their spare time with their spare money. There is probably no rich sponsor nor company structure behind it paying them for their efforts and the materials - a sponsor putting in millions of Euros into such a project will hire the people making them professionals by definition. So this will be done on a budget, looking for cheaper rocket fuel, cheaper construction methods, cheaper everything. And this could very well lead to cheaper space travel.
In the video, you can see dark and light patches in the exhaust trail of the rocket, which are obviously interference patterns. I'm guessing this is normal and expected behaviour, but I'm curious as to how they're formed, as I see no reason for the expelled fuel to behave like a wave.
Could someone enlighten me?
Of course I didn't RTFA.
Who says you can not get bacon out of a Danish pig?
The final goal is a manned (!) low-orbital flight.
The result could be some crispy Danish bacon.
> It is a 90,000 kW monster delivering a total of 140,000 N
Hey, that's almost as much as my 3/4 mile long Maelstrom battleship's impulse drive puts out in Eve Online!
F'ing got popped over the weekend thanks to idiot communication from my defending alliance and I came thru the portal they were at, only to see they had all fled and 30 reds were there.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A question in the high speed lateral view of the video there is a series of cone like structures throughout the length of the exhaust flame... What is the reason for that...
Did no one notice that the end of the engine burned off in mid test? As spectacular as the test was - it was a complete mechanical failure.
Danes with intercontinental-rocket-capabilities are indeed something that made me worried. But then I learned that it might be just the lack of women that makes Danes angry.
So, if you're female and single: do your part for world peace and spent some time in Denmark.