SLIDESHOW: Photos from last weekend's NASA SLI event. Photos: Clark Word.

TONEY, Alabama USA — April 26 was another beautiful day at the Bragg Farm. I arrived to temps in the 60's, and the American flag atop of the 150 foot tower was not moving at all. Mother Nature gave us a low ceiling all morning which gave plenty of time to build motors, and gave the teams time to prep. Later in the day the low clouds moved out, and some of the last teams of the day got to launch into blue skies. Details of this report might be a bit sketchy as I was under the motor prep tent for most of the event.

The first team to test the skies was Lloyd C. Bird High School out of Chesterfield, VA. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 100 inches long and weighed 15 pounds. The payload experiment was rotational dampening. The rocket was powered by a K650. Once the rocket was loaded onto the pad and everyone moved back a safe distance, the LCO checked the skies, gave a countdown and pushed the button. The first rocket of the day blasted off the launch pad. This rocket had a good, straight boost and proper dual deployment in the field.

The next team to launch was Plantation High School Team 2 out of Plantation, FL. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 92 inches long and weighed 14 pounds. The rocket was powered by a K1075. Their payload experiment was friction temperature. Once the LCO pushed the button on this rocket, the anticipation started to build. After a few seconds we started seeing smoke. Then we saw a chuff, followed by another chuff. The motor then came up to pressure and boosted the rocket off the pad for another straight boost. The main chute floated out at apogee and the rocket drifted about 1 mile down wind. The last word I heard was that the rocket had been located but had not touched down. Seems it was hovering in geo-synchronous orbit at about 60 feet above ground level — or in non-technical terms, it was stuck in the trees.

The Millington High School team out of Millington, MI was the next to load a rocket on the pad. The rocket was 5.5 inches in diameter, 108 inches long and weighed 21 pounds. The payload experiment was an air sampler. A K660 provided the propulsion. The rocket had a great flight and dual deployed in the field. Seems like it touched down about 700 feet from where it was launched.

The next team to launch was Benson High School out of Omaha, NE. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 79 inches long and weighed 14 pounds. It was powered by a K570. The payload experiment was infrared H2O spectroscopy. This rocket had a straight boost that looked higher than the previous three rockets with a proper dual deployment in the field.

The St. Andrew's Lutheran Church and School out of Park Ridge, IL was the next team to launch. The rocket was 6 inches in diameter, 129 inches long, weighed 41 pounds and was powered by an L1300 motor. The payload experiment was an air density pitot tube and robotic lander. The rocket displayed a straight boost. The crowd got a bit nervous during the deployment as the main chute was late to inflate but did fully inflate before touching down.

The next team to launch was Krueger Middle School from San Antonio, TX. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 100 inches long and weighed 11 pounds. It was powered by a K550 motor. The payload experiment was ozone sampling. The rocket had a good flight but the main chute deployed early.

Next up was Weare Middle School/John Stark Regional High School from Dunbarton, NH. The rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 75 inches long and weighed 12 pounds. It was powered by a K1100. The payload experiment was a robotic lander. This rocket had the fastest boost so far but deployed the main chute at apogee.

The next team to launch a rocket was Washington County 4-H out of Slinger, WI. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 84 inches long and weighed 20 pounds. The rocket was powered by a K700. The payload experiment was a turbine generator. The rocket had a straight boost just slightly into the wind with proper dual deployment in the field.

The next rocket to launch belonged to Frenship High School out of Wolfforth, TX. Their rocket was 3 inches in diameter, 63 inches long, weighed 7 pounds and was powered by a J275 motor. The rocket had a good flight but the main chute was shy and stayed hidden. As a result, the rocket landed hard.

The Yough High School team out of Herminie, PA was next on the launch pad. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 124 inches long and weighed 33 pounds. The payload experiment was crepe paper streamers. After one chuff the rocket leaped off the pad and streaked skyward. There was a separation at apogee and what looked like hundreds of whirlybirds were released.

The next team was Madison West High School from Madison, WI. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 118 inches long and weighed 26 pounds. The rocket was powered by a K780 motor. The payload experiment was pollen sampling. The rocket had a good flight with nominal deployment.

The next team to launch was W.G. Enloe High School out of Raleigh, NC. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 118 inches long, weighed 26 pounds, and was powered by a K780 motor. The rocket had a good straight boost but did not deploy a drogue at apogee. It was difficult to see the rocket coming down but the distinctive whistle drew our attention to the North. At around 500 feet the main was deployed and stripped off, saving a shovel recovery.

The Statesville Christian School team out of Statesville, NC was next to the pad. Their rocket was 3 inches in diameter, 72 inches long and weighed 9 pounds. It was loaded with a L1400 motor. The payload experiment was a reverse thruster for mach shock reduction. They had a G12 in the nose which was lit first, and then the L motor kicked in. This was the fastest boost of the day. The rocket arched over and we saw a twinkle in the sky. This was the last that I saw of the rocket. Late in the day the rocket was found and it was a shovel recovery for this team.

The Plantation High School Team 1 out of Plantation, FL was next to launch. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 98 inches long and weighed 14 pounds. It was powered by a K1000 motor. The Payload experiment was root growth. The team received a lot of oohs and aahs from the crowd when their motor lit and showered the launch pad area with sparks. They suffered a separation at apogee and the booster landed on the irrigation sprinkler.

The next team to the pad was West Point/Beemer High School from West Point, NE. Their rocket was 4 inches in diameter, 134 inches long, weighed 42 pounds and was powered by a L1300 in the booster and a K530 in the sustainer. Their payload experiment was a radiation monitor. The rocket had a good boost. The sustainer lit on time but suffered what looked like an early deployment during the motor burn.

The last flight of the day was Byron High School from Byron, IL. Their rocket was 7.7 inches in diameter, 129 inches long and weighed 35 pounds. It was loaded with a L1300 motor. The payload experiment was airfoil spin. The rocket had a good spin boost but the main got tangled in the deployment bag which caused major damage to the booster upon impact.

Since this SLI was not a contest, no altitudes were reported to the LCO. There were no losers at this event. All of the teams learned valuable lessons over the last eight months. I would like to give my award for managing diversity to Byron. The team had to not only change their motor on launch day but they also had to retrofit their rocket to accept a longer and smaller diameter motor with limited tools and resources at the launch site. They accomplished this task with plenty of time to spare and waited patiently all day for borrowed hardware to become available.

This marks HARA's 8th year of hosting NASA SLI launches for Marshall Space Flight Center. The first year we had three local teams. There is talk of expanding the program to more NASA locations next year to include many more teams. The teams continue to impress us with their rockets and payload experiments. I would like to thank the Bragg family for the use of their land and I would also like to thank all of the volunteers that pulled together to make big things happen on this big day.

This year's participants:

Yough High School, Herminie, PA

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05-04-2008 10:30 PM  #1
dknight Certified Level 2   Joined: Oct 2006 Posts: 12	Re: HARA delivers off another successful NASA SLI launch I want to commend HARA from the great launch. Everything went as smooth as it could have went, depending on some external circumstances. The Bragg farm is an impressive place to launch HPR. Overall, well done. Doug

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