CANTIL, California USA — The Sugar Shot to Space team experienced a casing failure during a static firing of their MiniSShot motor, a scaled-down version of the flight vehicle, this past Saturday at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry test facility in the Mojave Desert.

The Sugar Shot to Space goal is to be the first rocket to reach space, roughly 100 kilometers or 62 miles, using truly amateur propellant, rather than the most commonly found ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) that nearly all professional and military rockets use. The GoFast team, who was officially the first amateur team to reach space in 2004, used the more ubiquitous APCP propellant.  Sugar propellant is considered the most popular propellant used by amateur rocketry experimentalists worldwide due to its inherent simplicity and safety, is not a high performance propellant.

SLIDESHOW: Photos from the Sugar Shot to Space test firing of the MiniSShot motor. Photos: Sugar Shot to Space.

The Mojave static firing of the scaled motor involved testing the two-phased burn design of the real propulsion system, which utilizes a 10 second "coast" delay between the firing of the primary and secondary combustion chambers. 

According to Project Co-Director Richard Nakka, "The first burn went very smoothly and the motor appeared to operate as expected. After the planned 10 second 'coast' delay, the second chamber was ignited, and within a second, casing rupture occurred just aft of the midbulkhead joint."

Nakka went on to explain that while the failure was similar to ones previously experienced, the cause didn't appear to be the same. According to Nakka, "Preliminary analysis indicates that a nozzle blockage may have occurred due to degradation and subsequent collapse of the casing insulation liner during the 10 second thermal soaking."

The team has already begun a thorough post-firing analysis, including analyzing thermal data indicators as seen in the accompanying photos.

Nakka will travel in May to Iceland, where he has been invited to give a presentation at the University of Reykjavik on the topics of amateur rocketry and the Sugar Shot to Space project on May 2nd.  Afterward, he will attend the launch of a rocket designed and built by the university students on May 4th.

Website: http://www.sugarshot.org/

04-28-2008 09:30 PM  #1
R2K Certified Level Three   Joined: Jul 2007 Posts: 115	Re: Amateur space shot team fires test motor in Mojave desert Wow great looking project. So much fun... Can a BP rocket to space be far behind?!?! On a serious note, I would love to see some hybrids attempt near space - space flights as well. There have been some great projects (an R hybrid I remember) but they all seem to fail. Such a simple motor, you would think it would be more common.

05-01-2008 09:48 AM  #2
Rocketman New Member   Joined: Jan 2008 Posts: 2	Re: Amateur space shot team fires test motor in Mojave desert Congratulations Guys, keep up the good work, fallow your dreams,never give up, If you can dream it you can do it. Ky Michaelson

05-01-2008 04:14 PM  #3
noise Certified Level One   Joined: Jun 2007 Posts: 11	Re: Amateur space shot team fires test motor in Mojave desert It's awesome that progress is still being made on this, even if it isn't nominal. Inspiring project.