video

March 6, 2004

Here's how the launch went for those that couldn't make it:
We started the final prep Saturday morning. One of our altimeters went bad but someone loaned us an even better altimeter which was quickly installed. Everything went according to plans until we realized we forgot the things to attach the chutes. Luckily Devin used his boy scout skills to tie us a special knot. So we got the rocket on the rail, filled it, and began launch sequences.

After the countdown, the rocket had a perfect ignition and began to take off. As I was in the blockhouse I watched it light and start up the rail. I went outside to see how high it went but then Carl and Steve instantly started heading back under cover. The rocket went up but it's thrust started to decrease to zero and the rocket came back down. It the ground hard but did not explode. We waited a while but there was no explosion so we had a tractor move it to let the liquid oxygen evaporate. The rocket's propellant basically started flowing less and less until it just completely stopped.

We have lots of footage, (including the footage from onboard) of the rocket leaving the rail, hovering, and then descending. Our altimeters showed that we reached 100ft. which is progress. We have 3 theories as to what happened.
After taking apart the rocket we can easily determine which one it was:

1.) The regulators failed or were not properly set.
2.) Check valves failed.
3.) Rust clogged the fuel injection.

If anyone has pics or video could you send me a copy. Also, we will have a rocket meeting in the near future to discuss what's next and what happened. Don't get discouraged. It took Garvey 5 rockets to finally get one up and back safely so having our second rocket work perfect would have been amazing. Most of the professionals there said that to get as far as we did with that rocket is pretty impressive.

Thanks everyone,

Joey Brown
Project Manager

October 23, 2004

Hello everyone!

Well, the launch is now over and I thank all the people that came and helped out. Here's how it went:

Beginning early saturday we began finish some hatch work on the rocket to make them fit better. Then we started arming pyros and packing chutes. Everything was going fine until we loaded the rocket on the rail and began fueling it with kerosene. The instant we began fueling we saw the kerosene pour out of the motor. It turns out one of the valves was accidentally attached wrong after cleaning the motor so that it opened when it was supposed to be closed. This was a plm because our motor mount bolts were already tightened to their yield point and so they could not be reused. HOwever we had to clean the motor because it was now full of kerosene and could not be fired. Luckily Dave Crisalli had the exact bolts that we needed and so we were able to take off the rocket motor and clean it once again. After reattaching the motor we filled the rocket with kerosene and then the LOX and then the countdown began. Do you remember Machezuma? Well that is what happened this time except the explosion was much more minute, and we vented the tanks and shut the propellant valves a second later, saving most of the rocket. As of right now we're still investigating the cause, but we do know that the explosion happened in between the injector plate and the LOX dome.

We should have another launch in december or january and luckily the entire rocket is salvagable except for the plumbing around the motor. After the explosion the altemeters accidentally fired off the nosecone and it worked flawlessly. So although we did not get to launch the rocket we now know that our recover system works and we will hope to see it in action in December.

Thanks once again to everyone that came and made this possible. We will soon hold a rocket meeting and discuss plans for the next launch. I'm sorry things didn't work out perfectly. This is our third rocket and to have a perfectly successful liquid rocket work on the third try would have still been amazing. If you have any pictures or videos, send them to me because i will need them for the AIAA meeting in a week.

Keep checking your mail for future updates and work days.

Joey Brown
Project Manager