Rocketry Planet

GERLACH, Nevada USA — The Black Rock Desert was the place to be this past weekend for rocketeers for the annual XPRS launch.  XPRS is the acronym for eXtreme Performance Rocket Ships, a name coined at a session in the AERO-PAC camp during the 2001 LDRS launch at Lucerne, California. 

The individual credited with conceiving the concept was Tom Cloud, an AERO-PAC member who passed away in December of 2001.  The intent was to create a "Triple Crown" of Tripoli launches and it completes the triumvirate of LDRS and BALLS. Black Rock, considered the supreme rocket launching site in the world for all types of hobby rocketry, is uniquely suited to field such an event.  Miles and miles of flat recovery area with the closest powerline 20 miles across the desert playa.

Adrian Carbine with his N-to-N two-stage record setting rocket.

Adrian Carbine of Oregon has been there before.  He currently holds the Tripoli Rocketry Association's O motor altitude record for the staged and clustered class at 40,098 feet, set at XPRS last year.  This year, he returned to launch his most recent, and certainly most ambitious assault on the records books, with a three-stage rocket utilizing an N motor staged to an N motor staged to an M motor.

Carbine's rocket consists of a first stage and second stage of 4" G10 tubing reinforced with a layer of Aerosleeves carbon fiber.  The upper stage sustainer is 3" in diameter using the same method of G10/Aerosleeves reinforced tubing.  In fact, the first stage is the same first stage from last year's record setting flight.  This year, he built a new second stage booster and third stage sustainer.  One modification he allowed this time was to route all electronic wiring through the inside of the airframe instead of routing it externally as he did in his two stage record flight.

The rocket itself stands 24 feet tall and weighs 120 pounds, flight-ready.  The empty rocket itself only weighs about 35 lbs - half of the rocket's total weight is just the motors. The flight plan called for the sustainer to do most of the work, taking over around 30,000 feet and quickly climbing toward 100,000 feet.  It would hit a peak velocity somewhere around Mach 2.7, where it was to reach apogee around 1.5 minutes into the flight, and then takes approximately 20 minutes to descend under a small drogue chute.

Adrian Carbine and his 'project manager' with the three-stager. 

The motors for the flight were made by Cesaroni Technologies: an N2500 in the first stage, an N1100 in the second stage, and an M1400 in the upper stage sustainer. The upper two stages use dual-deployment with four CO2 systems on-board: two are used for staging while the other two are for drogue chute deployment at high altitude.

The rocket was built for high-temperature high-mach flights, using high-temperature materials and epoxies, along with an aluminum tip on the nose cone. The glossy red paint used on all the transitions, fins, and the nose cone is an automotive brake rotor paint, supposedly good to 900 degrees F. Carbine used this to eliminate the paint bubbling he saw on his last record flight.

Fin construction consisted of laminated layers of aircraft plywood and carbon fiber cloth, with high-temp G10 edges with an air-foiled cross-section, then surface-mounted with multiple layers of tip-to-tip carbon fiber lamination.

This rocket was an electrician's dream.  Or nightmare!  There were primary and backup altimeters to control parachute deployment, with a Defy Gravity Control used in the sustainer to control third-stage separation and motor ignition.  There were Blacksky ALTACC's in all three stages. The lower stages also use Adept ALTS60K/25K altimeters as backups.

Second-stage separation and motor ignition is controlled by Blacksky timers as backup, with an Adept staging timer as backup. The sustainer carries a Beeline GPS in the nosecone, modified to transmit not only GPS coordinates/altitude, but also flight status: staging, drogue chute deployment, and main chute deployment.

The electronics on this project were very complex but worked well for the most part.

Carbine made the trip from Oregon, driving down in his RV on Wednesday, virtually completing the rocket on the trip down.  He spent Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday completing the rocket and getting it prepped for flight. Friend Greg Clark pitched in and helped in building the motors while Carbine finished programming all the altimeters. The rocket passed RSO inspection and at mid-afternoon on Saturday, they loaded it into a truck for the trip to the away cell.

At the pad, Carbine installed the igniters into the upper stage motors, shoved the motors into the fin cans with a little help from some WD40, stacked and shear-pinned the behemoth together, and with help from a multitude friends and bystanders, got it stood upright. Adrian climbed all the way to the top of the tower, removing shunts and powering every thing up, arming the altimeters, and working his way back down.

At the range head, the XPRS LCO interrupted other flights going on, and the three stage vehicle was launched around 5:30 PM. The N2500 in the first stage put it straight up into the air, with just a little side-to-side movement on its way.  At first-stage burnout there was a planned 4-second delay, then the N1100 came up to pressure and the sustainer/2nd-stage took off on a long 12-second burn, headed straight up.

After what was supposed to be an 8-second delay, allowing the rocket to slow back down below Mach, the M1400 in the sustainer failed to light. For some reason the Defy Gravity Control that was in charge of firing the upper stage never detected liftoff. When Carbine recovered the rocket an hour after the flight, the Control was still signaling that it was waiting for launch!

The is what all the parts look like ready to make a road trip to XPRS on the Black Rock Desert in Gerlach, Nevada.

Fortunately Carbine had backup electronics for the drogue and main parachutes, as well as timer backup on the staging separation, so everything came down nicely under chute. The Beeline GPS was busily working, transmitting X/Y GPS coordinates, altitude, and flight status continuously from the rocket to anybody who had a receiver. All stages landed within a couple-mile radius of the launch pad, and without so much as a scratch.

Carbine stated that he was still satisfied with the results.  "In spite of the 3rd stage not igniting, I'm quite happy with how the flight went. Liftoff was clean and good, and the airframe held together just fine. The first booster went over 6000 feet up, and the second booster and sustainer reached an apogee of 29,000 feet, right on-target," Carbine said. 

"If the sustainer motor had lit, and if it was pointed up as it appeared to be, it could possibly have reached at least 80,000 feet. The CO2 staging systems and backup electronics worked great, and the Beelines were great. Having flight status for the sustainer was really nice, because even at 30,000 feet I couldn't see the rocket anymore. I got great flight data off the ALTACC in each stage. The rocket is in pristine condition, with hardly a scratch, so I'll figure out what went wrong with the DGC and try it again next year."

Here is a shot of the nose cone with it's aluminum tip.

Statistics:

• Weight: 120 pounds ready to fly
• Empty weight: 34 pounds
• Height: 24 feet tall

Electronics:

• 1 Defy Gravity Control
• 3 Blacksky ALTACCs (1 per stage)
• 2 Adept ALTS altimeters
• 2 Blacksky timers
• 1 Adept staging timer
• 2 Beeline beacons
• 1 Beeline GPS
• 1 Walston transmitter

Recovery:

• Skyangle Cert-3 large parachutes in each booster
• Skyangle Cert-3 drogue parachutes in the 2nd booster
• Skyangle 60-inch parachute in the sustainer
• 1 foot diameter bulletproof drogue parachute
• 4 CO2 systems for staging and high altitude staging & 17 electric matches

Carbine wishes to extend a special thank you to everybody who helped him with this launch: Randy Steck, Gary Brown, Greg Clark, John Cox, Kimberly Harms, Fred Azinger, Rick Clapp, Mike Dennett at Cesaroni Technologies, and others.

Reader comments:

#1

Awesome rocket! I hope there is video of the launch somewhere. The success of the recovery proves something Stu Barrett told me a while ago - use DIFFERENT avionics for redundancy, not two of the same thing!

k3td on 09-25-2006 10:21 PM

#2

Quote:

Awesome rocket! I hope there is video of the launch somewhere.

Video would be COOL!

Quote:

The success of the recovery proves something Stu Barrett told me a while ago - use DIFFERENT avionics for redundancy, not two of the same thing!

Yeah, but did you see that electronics bay? I almost needed a PhD in electronics just to trace out what devices were there.

crontab on 09-25-2006 11:48 PM

#3

Amazing stuff! Great report!

dixontj on 09-26-2006 12:33 PM

#4

Quote:

Amazing stuff! Great report!

Where else can you get such great information online? I am constantly amazed...

crontab on 09-26-2006 03:43 PM

#5 Lovely Work

I had the honor to RSO Adrian's rocket this time and last time at last year's XPRS. Lovely work and a solid attempt to reach the waiver at Black Rock.

Of course ... there are at least two other teams working to the same goal ...

KenBiba on 09-26-2006 11:18 PM

#6 Adrian Carbine's 3 stage attempt @ XPRS

Adrian, awesome project. Even though it was not totally successful, my hat's off to the technology involved in the attempt. For those who may not be aware, TRA obliges our FAA partners by requesting internal reviews of TRA flights members@ TRA launches. These reviews also are used in TRA's internal "risk analysis" obligations for the organization's insurance. Mr Carbine's documentation submitted that I had the honor of reviewing and submitting to the TRA BoD was second to none. Specifically, although all of his documentation was par excellance, his risk analysis submittal was above and beyond the call of duty, and has been used as a model for the upcoming October X Prize/X CUP TRA flights...... http://www.xprizecup.com/a...ons_high_powered_rockets as an aide in the ever increasing scrutiny by federal authorities for flights over 25K AGL in high density spectator venues.

Mr Carbine (Adrian's correct spelling of his last name btw), its folks like you who will pave the way for future ambitious projects such as yours for all of us. I applaude you sir, and look forward to next year's project.

Pat G
TRA VP
http://www.tripoli.org/documents/policies.shtml

Pat G on 09-26-2006 11:32 PM

#7

Quote:

Mr Carbine (Adrian's correct spelling of his last name btw), its folks like you who will pave the way for future ambitious projects such as yours for all of us. I applaude you sir, and look forward to next year's project.

Pat, right you are about the name. I was just using the "hardened" version of Carbine, get it, Carbide? Ok, I screwed up. But at least I was consistent. You know, like the ATF is "consistently inconsistent", I was consistently wrong.

ddmobley on 09-26-2006 11:50 PM

#8 Photos from the ground

I have posted several photos from XPRS on flickr including this project: Adrian doing stage assembly, Adrian on ladder, and finally, blastoff!!

Rock on,
Steve

jurvetson on 09-28-2006 12:54 AM

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