Qu8k Rockets Above the Balloons

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Qu8k Rockets Above the Balloons

Posted by timothy on Sunday October 9, 2011 @05:02AM from the want-to-subscribe-to-your-newsletter dept.

darkjohnson writes "Lately we've been inundated with 100k' balloon flights and amazing video footage from space — the flights usually taking better than an hour to achieve apogee. Derek Deville took a shortcut to 121k' using a 'home made' Q rocket motor and a ton of engineering genius. On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Qu8k (pronounced 'Quake') launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' in 92 seconds before returning safely to earth.This small documentary on the flight is probably one of the most brilliant Amateur Rocket videos out there right now." The launch was an attempt to claim the Carmack Prize. (And Deville evidently likes to launch another kind of rocket, too.)

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Impressive by JavaBear · 2011-10-09 05:16 · Score: 3

That is pretty much all I can say :)
1. Re:Impressive by cfc-12 · 2011-10-09 05:39 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yes, but it's not exactly rocket science. Oh wait...
2. Re:Impressive by Grog6 · 2011-10-09 05:48 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Agreed!
  This is nice. I wonder what it cost to do...
  Seeing the epoxy cover over the camera melt off was interesting too; good thing it came off evenly. :)
  
  --
  Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
3. Re:Impressive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-09 10:47 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  This is nice. I wonder what it cost to do...
  I happened to be hanging out last night with one of the camera men who filmed this launch from the ground. Needless to say it is very surprising to see this on Slashdot, it's like having my private life show up here, very weird. Anyway, the answer to your question is "I'm not gonna say" but it was more than $10 thousand.
  If you've seen the rocket launch from '08 where Team Numb fired a keg of beer to about 6000 feet, that was a good launch too. I have weird friends.
Homeland Security's gonna love this... by wisebabo · 2011-10-09 05:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Geez, I hope the poor guy doesn't get kidnapped by the Iranians! (Or the Palestinians).
I wonder if he'll be allowed to leave the country (I know someone who works for the NSA who needs to give the State Dept. 3 months prior notice before leaving the U.S. Not sure if this includes Canada). Ok, maybe this rocket isn't state of the art rocketry. And not sure how guided it was. Still 112,000 ft.!
So, is this basically the design of a "Katushka?". Or even earlier the rockets launched by the Soviets in the launchers called "Stalin's Organ"?
Has he tried staging? Is it legal for a private American citizen to put something in orbit? (I guess I'm just kidding, while 112k is a good height, orbit requires a very high horizontal velocity of 5 miles a sec.)
What about launching FROM a balloon? (Although it might be more fun to launch AT a balloon).
Ok, these comments are kinda non-sensical, I just woke up from a nap.
1. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by ColdWetDog · 2011-10-09 05:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  While pretty impressive from a home hobbyist point of view (I'm showing this to my wife, I'm nowhere near this bad) - it doesn't break any ground in terms of rocketry. He isn't a state secret, needn't walk around icognito. If you watch the videos of the Libyan war, you see similar devices shot more or less horizontally. As you allude to, staging is much harder. Payloads are harder.
  The bungie cord though, is fantastic. So are the little GoPro cameras. One other interesting pointlet is that most of the PCBs seem to be COTS prototyping boards. He's managed to leverage a large amount of over the counter tech for this thing.
  Even if he's not doing anything horridly complex (by world standards, at least) it's pretty damned cool.
  
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  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
2. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by EdZ · 2011-10-09 05:43 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  One other interesting pointlet is that most of the PCBs seem to be COTS prototyping boards.
  And importantly, almost entirely SMT boards. You may think that through-hole components are more robust, but SMT can survive much greater G-loads for the twin reasons of being generally much lower mass, and having a big flat plane of attachment rather than long legs with unattached sections free to bend and fatigue.This has important implications for gun-type space launches: very heavy and very, very expensive monolithic resin electronics blocks are unnecessary, properly mounted SMT boards are sufficient.
3. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by ColdWetDog · 2011-10-09 05:54 · Score: 2
  
  I haven't seen through the hole PCBs on commercial stuff for ages. Unless it's really high power stuff or the company is still using boards from a decade a go. Even for hobbyists, SMT (Surface Mount Technology) is pretty easy. Once you get a nice magnifying glass and some fine tweezers.
  
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  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
4. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by Teancum · 2011-10-09 07:38 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Wake me when one of the "private" space outfits finally puts a human being in space
  So you are suggesting that the efforts of Burt Rutan didn't qualify as "putting people into space? You also think that "Space Adventures" is a science fiction magazine?
  While I'll admit it has taken longer for regular sub-orbital flights to happen since the Ansari X-Prize, private citizens have been able to get into space and even orbit. And of those who have been able to into space on their own dime (or that of a private employer), passenger spacecraft have been able to get above the Kármán line.
  I agree, this particular rocket, the Qu8k, isn't especially amazing other than it has done something that few have done before on their own. 100k feet is a remarkable accomplishment, and the fact that these guys did that accomplishment on a rather limited budget is all that more amazing. Assuming they could put this into production, they have a viable sounding rocket if they care.... something which has an established market if they would care to get into that kind of business.
  The interesting thing here is likely how cheap it was to build this rocket, at least compared to other vehicles of this size and performance.
5. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by subreality · 2011-10-09 12:48 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The initial learning curve is harder, and you'll want a good soldering iron, but once you've cleared those hurdles hand soldering SMD is a piece of cake.
  Reflow soldering is completely hobbyist-accessible too: I use a syringe of solder paste to put little dots on all the pads, tweezers to place all the components, and then I lay it in a bare aluminum (NO TEFLON!) frying pan. Throw it on the stove for five minutes and pluck the board out with a pair of needle nose pliers (the pan cools too slowly) after all the solder melts.
  The surface tension of the melted solder pulls all the components into alignment, so you don't have to place them perfectly. A few pins usually get messed up since I'm not as precise with the syringe as I would be with a stencil, but I just inspect with a cheap loupe and clean up any mistakes manually. Other people use toaster ovens with much success, but I've found the frying pan works great for single-sided boards.
  Honestly I find it's much less tedious than through-hole soldering, and I love having access to all the cool SMD ICs that you just can't get in DIP packages. The only problem is that prototyping is a bitch. If you want to breadboard a SMD IC you have to make a SMD to DIP adapter board first. But I usually don't bother: I just design my board, get one made, manually kludge around any mistakes by lifting pins and soldering in fine wires until I get it working (usually only one or two wires per board), and then get a final one made.
6. Re:Homeland Security's gonna love this... by Teancum · 2011-10-10 09:28 · Score: 2
  
  A private manned spacecraft into orbit? Not yet. SpaceX and Blue Origin sure are trying, as is XCor. Yes, I'll admit that Dennis Tito went into orbit riding a Soyuz spacecraft.... sold to him because Russia allowed capitalism to enter their country and permit this to happen, unlike in America. It still was a privately-financed orbital flight with people as the crew.
  BTW, the Dragon spacecraft, which was originally developed with private funds and even with the COTS money still isn't a "national-level spacecraft" by any definition of the term certainly could have sent an astronaut to orbit and safely brought them back. The trick is to get the costs down so it can be done for a somewhat reasonable price.
  Some of this is definitions here, but private orbital spaceflight is currently possible. You do need to currently train to become an astronaut/cosmonaut which takes at least six months of intense study and a physical exam that not everybody with that kind of money can pass, but assuming you are in good physical shape and have the money to place on taking a trip into orbit, it can be done. Space Adventures is willing to take your money and allow you to contact previous customers who are quite satisfied with the quality of service from that company. A list of previous customers is available upon request and also found on Wikipedia if you aren't sure of the accuracy.
Outstanding! by dbc · 2011-10-09 05:37 · Score: 2

That's manly.
Every aspect of that rocket was impressive, the construction, the flight profile, the telemetry, and especially the recovery. Total success.
Having lost more Estes rockets than I can remember in corn fields and cow pastures 40+ years ago, all I could think of all the way up was: "How the fsck is he ever going to find that thing again?" When they drove up to a totally intact rocket in the middle of the desert, whooping all the way, I could totally identify. That was a jaw dropping moment for me.
Well done, sirs.
1. Re:Outstanding! by mmontour · 2011-10-09 06:10 · Score: 2
  
  "How the fsck is he ever going to find that thing again?"
  
  It helps if the rocket has a GPS receiver and is broadcasting its position over APRS. At 08:23 you can see a short clip of them receiving a position report on what looks like a Kenwood TH-D7A handheld transceiver.
2. Re:Outstanding! by dbc · 2011-10-09 06:44 · Score: 2
  
  That's the easy part. When you consider the altitude he reached, bringing down in the same state is a challenge. Telemetry is the easy part of rocketry.
Why so few comments??? by __aasehi2499 · 2011-10-09 05:48 · Score: 2

Everyone is over checking out the pics, videos and documentation. Some of the folks that actually understand flight math won't be back on Slashdot til tomorrow.
Thank you for the (no lame music) by Spy+Handler · 2011-10-09 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Thanks d3deville for the kick-ass rocket video. Double thanks for leaving the audio track blissfully free of crappy pop/rock/punk/rave background music that infests so many Youtube airplane/rocket videos.

Although personally I think if you had added the soundtrack from The Right Stuff movie (orchestral piece from end of the movie during Gordo Cooper's launch), it would've made your excellent video even more awesome, I suspect that people who do not share my tastes in music might have been put off.
1. Re:Thank you for the (no lame music) by dotbot · 2011-10-09 07:34 · Score: 2
  
  The raw in-flight sound really makes this video brilliant. The rocket splutters and then eerie silence.. for a few seconds. Mesmerizing stuff...
Re:in new money: 36880 metres by Smallpond · 2011-10-09 06:54 · Score: 3, Funny

It's 183 furlongs, ok?
Guidence by dharma21 · 2011-10-09 07:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

The most amazing part for me is that there seems to be no steering mechanism for this rocket. The fact that this was machined so well to withstand those speeds, maintain proper telemetry and not spin out of control/crash to earth, etc. is a testament to the builders. With that type of airflow, any slight imperfection in the fins would have made this a very short or nausea inducing video. Instead we get to view beautiful images of the planet we live in.
Re:What was covering the lens? by WhiplashII · 2011-10-09 07:25 · Score: 5, Informative

The part holding the cameras was made from plastic, because he didn't have enough time to machine it. It melted when the rocket hit mach 3+, because of the compression shock wave that formed in front of it. (Commonly misreported in the media as "air friction")
Essentially, the plastic thing poked out of the rocket. The mach 3+ air had to be brought to a dead stop right in front of it. The way it does that is by forming a high pressure shock right in front of it. Basic physics, when you compress air is gets hot - in this case, melting the plastic rocket bits...

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while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
A nice little sounding rocket by Animats · 2011-10-09 08:00 · Score: 3, Informative

Sounding rockets in this size have been around for a while. The first one was the Aerobee sounding rocket in 1947. It reached 117500m. One of the smaller Aerobee variants of the 1950s was about this size. There have been many small sounding rockets over the decades; the UK and Australia launched a lot of them.
Once the rockets are up up... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-09 08:36 · Score: 2, Funny

Who cares where they come down.
"Thats not my department"
Says Wernher von Braun
Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun
Re:Not impressive by khallow · 2011-10-09 13:51 · Score: 2

Balloons are slow and low-tech
Part of my indignation is because I launch high altitude weather balloons for a non-profit. The basic technology for these balloons is similar in age to solid propellant rockets. Sure, balloons are slow, but they have other advantages and disadvantages compared to rockets.

The engineering and fabrication techniques required to keep something in one piece under those conditions are pretty challenging.
Having actually made a sounding rocket that was intended to launch under similar conditions (and failed, I might add), I appreciate what you're saying. Balloons don't push the envelop as much, but they do have their own engineering challenges.
Restrictions on Civilian GPS by PhunkySchtuff · 2011-10-09 23:11 · Score: 2

I wonder how they planned to get around the restrictions on civilian GPS. Whilst I'm sure they took this into account (at least I hope both they and John Carmack did) is that civilian GPS receivers are limited to speeds quite a bit below their speed, and altitudes of around half of the achieved altitude:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Restrictions_on_civilian_use
"The U.S. Government controls the export of some civilian receivers. All GPS receivers capable of functioning above 18 kilometres (11 mi) altitude and 515 metres per second (1,001 kn) are classified as munitions (weapons) for which U.S. State Department export licenses are required."
3,516 km/h is just over 975 m/sec and they estimate an altitude of more than twice the restricted altitude.

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Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
flat earth society by surd1618 · 2011-10-10 05:55 · Score: 2

Lancaster, CA, where I grew up, was the home base of the Flat Earth Society. When I was a little kid, my grandpa helped me build a couple of Estes rockets and we took them out to the dry lake beds. I would have loved to have taken Charles K Johnson out there and fired off a rocket like this, so he could watch the Earth curve away on the video feed.