We are tired, but satisfied enjoying our pizza and beer. We are processing the video footage and are almost ready to upload. At 22:30 we are going to watch “Hart van Nederland” which is a national television program. They joined us almost the whole day and made an item about the launch.

So the story of our launch. Yesterday we thought to be almost ready, though some small problems kept the concept launcher crew up till 1:30… For us the launch day started at 8:30, when we arrived at the launch site. Almost directly Wouter’s phone started to ring. The first journalist was asking for directions to our site. In the mean time the capsule crew started with their final preparations. Today the concept rocket was not the only rocket to be launched, we were placed in the fourth launch window. Between the flights of first year rockets, the capsule crew did the final preparations.

In the meantime Wouter and I ran from radio interview to camera crew telling our story. We are really curious to all the items the press will publish. We already made nu.nl and TV Gelderland (16:25). I am pretty sure SBS6 will broadcast its item, (and don’t forget Radio 2 (1.33.30) ). The question now is, what will be in the newspapers tomorrow…

Lastly, there is one thing which we did not tell. We also tested a new rocket motor in one of the small rockets. The performance is very promising (an Isp of almost 200 s) . The footage with the bright yellow flame (in the other website item) might be the first video of a new motor concept which will propel the Stratos II to its record altitude. Later this weekend Hein, team leader of the solid propulsion group will blog about it.

The end of Tuesday.  There were two main themes today. Finalizing the concept launcher and the TU Delft press release. So first what did we do with the concept launcher? We put 6 kg of lead in the capsule, so instead of 9 kg it weighs 15 kg right now. Normally you take such drastic measures when there are serious problems; we put it in on purpose.  One of the main things we want to learn is whether or not our system is strong enough. At this moment, there are no payloads, the nose cone is not made as strong (and heavy) as to withstand the forces when flying Mach 5 and there is definitely not a solid metal thermal protection system to absorb the generated heat when flying 5000 km/hour. Friday we will fly to 1 km and only reach a speed of roughly 600 km/hour. In other words, the capsule will be too light. To simulated the mass of all these missing systems, we replaced them with ordinary lead which you can buy at every do it yourself shop.

So the second theme was the press release. It was a bit stressy just before the TU Delft released it because I forgot to gather some pictures and illustrations. Ooops… but just on time we were able to find the right material. You can find the news item on the homepage of the TU Delft or here. You sometimes forget, but this project would not be possible without the TU Delft.  They provide us with workplaces, server space, help with PR, wind tunnel time and there is always an expert available. We can ask questions about aerodynamics, propulsion, electronics, finance, media attention, law and so on….I am proud to be a TU Delft student!

Traditionally every mission to space has a mission patch: a unique badge that is representative of the mission. Such a badge can function as a logo of the mission and is usually worn on team clothing.
Stratos II can of course not stay behind in that respect. Therefore we designed a patch, which every team member can proudly wear on their shoulder:

Next week will be a major milestone. Although the flight of the concept launcher is a very important test for the capsule team, something else excites me even more (and if you know me, you know that launching rockets makes me happy). Next week we will announce our project to the rest of world. We will tell them that we are aiming to reach that final boundary,and that we as students, are on our way to space.

At this moment an average of 10 people per day visit this site. Maybe 40 people in total will read a blog item. Next week this will change. At this moment the team is congressing to this point in time called launchday. For the capsule team this means finalizing the rocket for me it means a lot of phonecalls…

For example today the following had to be decided: (read I call somebody, or somebody calls me..)

11:00 Will the tower deflection sensor be available on time? I need the data for my Msc thesis research, and I want to graduate one day…

15:00 How will the press release look like?  What do we communicate as our main reason to do this project? (there are many, but at the end we do it to get hands-on experience, to become better engineers)

20:00 If press will visited our launchday, are the right persons informed? How will cope with interviews? where should journalist go?

22:00 Ehhrrr Frank, we are testing the capsule rocket and we are not really sure if system X works. Should we use the original solution or will we use the backup plan. (okay guys, lets redo the math, fix things with ducktape which are loose and need to be tighted together and use silicon spray to make things loose which are too tight….)

00:00 Writing this blog.

This how a day near a launchday looks for me and most team members have similar stories, about preparing rocket motors, assembling parachutes and fixing electronics. All those people, working together as one team for those 2 minutes of flight.  In seven days we will tell the world our stories and I am looking forward to it!

Today the March edition of the Leonardo Times was released. This is the Journal of the Society of Aerospace Engineering Students ‘Leonardo da Vinci’. In this edition an article written by Stratos project members is published about Stratos II. It elaborates on the design of the solid propulsion, hybrid propulsion, capsule and electronics. To read more continue to the article.

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• Hybrid propulsion update — January 12, 2012
• Solid propellant – last PTD tests — January 10, 2012
• Solid propulsion update — September 7, 2011
• Another successful hybrid motor test — May 27, 2011
• Not 1 but 2 successful tests on launch day — May 15, 2011

• Stratos II capsule (6)
• Stratos II electronics (1)
• Stratos II hybrid propulsion (6)
• Stratos II promotion (6)
• Stratos II solid propulsion (3)
• Stratos II team (6)