LAKEWOOD, Colorado USA — Extreme Rocketry Magazine is working with author Steve Ainsworth on a new series of articles on "Mass Fraction of High Power Rocketry Vehicles."

In the past, Steve has written a number of articles and booklets on various high level mathematics in rocketry including "Vertical Trajectory Systems" and a number of articles on aerospace mathematics. For those of you not familiar with the term, "Mass Fraction" is a rocketry term used to denote how much of the total mass of the rocket is anything but payload.  It is the motor, propellant, airframe, and recovery system mass (weight) that is required to place the "payload" at altitude.  The payload is the payload airframe and any onboard computer, camera, or radio, etc. that is not required for flight control or recovery.

Below is a list of data that Steve will use in creating his article.

Required information:

• Motor total impulse
• Overall weight of the vehicle, including payload
• Weight of just the payload (payload are the components not needed for the flight and recovery like cameras, radios, payload airframe, etc.)

Additional helpful information:

• Propellant weight
• Motor casing weight
• Empty motor section vehicle weight
• Full recovery section weight
• Full payload weight
• Photo of the rocket

Equipped with the information above from a variety of rocketeers, Steve will be able to compile information for an article on "Mass Fraction of High Power Rocketry Vehicles" to appear in Extreme Rocketry Magazine. If you would like to provide data about your rocket(s) for a future article in Extreme Rocketry on "Mass Fraction" of high power rockets, please send the requested data and any additional data by email to Steve at: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .