After some delays the countdown has finally started at 10:28 at T-1h. With no holds or jumps the launch is expected at 11:28. The winds look much more promising: up to 2.5 m/s at ground level, which is well below the limits. Any further updates will be posted soon.

Today an occlusion front passed Kiruna. Why is this interesting? Because today the launch was cancelled because of the weather. Not because it was snowing this morning, but because the sun drove away all the clouds. The weather changed very rapidly and just when we were driving the rocket to the launch tower the winds started. Blowing from the south and having a velocity swinging between 7 and 12 m/s, six on the scale of Beaufort, it was without doubt that we could not launch in the perfectly blue sky. Not only the Stratos can not cope with it, there is also a risk that the Maxus model will tip over.

Because the weather is mild, being above zero for the first time this year, it is not necessary to protect the rocket against the elements at all times. This is why we can first roll back the Maxus building and then put the rocket in the launch tower. In earlier plans the whole rocket was firstly packed in a polystyrene house before the Maxus tower was rolled away. After this the tower should be put in the right position. Because this no longer the case, the tower can be put in the right position before we hang the rocket in it. This is what we did this morning. To fixate the position of the tower a 1000 kg heavy block of concrete was put in the rear legs. Because the tower is all ready in the right position we don’t have to do that tomorrow morning, saving us precious time.

Due to unfortunate weather conditions (wind) we will not launch today. Luckily the weather is expected to improve much tomorrow and we are quite certain that we can launch during the morning. Further updates will follow.

Today we spent on all those little things which you want to do before a launch but you never have the time for. Today we spent most of the time testing and practicing with the telemetry. Although earlier in the blog we mentioned that our transmitter could send data we still had problems receiving it. That is why we decided to go for a backup plan. Instead of sending all the data we limited it to only the status and apogee in morse code. Eric and John John will listen and translate the morse code real-time. By doing so we will know if the flight is successful and what the highest point will be. We tested this system by driving with the capsule to radar hill and start sending the status of the rocket to the telemetry dome of the main building. This backup plan worked perfectly.  But there is even more good news. Just before dinner Eric found the error in the software where we were looking for the last few days. Now we will be able to receive the measurement data such as current pressure. The other secondary system, namely the camera, has been removed from the rocket because it did not work.

We almost finished the final tests with the final flight software. In a couple of minutes we will power down the electronics only to activate again on the launch pad on top of the sustainer motor. We are ready to launch the Stratos and tomorrow will be the best opportunity we had the launch the Stratos.

Lastly some panorama pictures taken by Emile to show the views we saw in the last two weeks.

The last few days went by very fast, with two balloon launches, two rocket launches and the delay of the Stratos launch. Today was a day of rest and processing the previous 72 hours. Most people spent the day alone or just with two people enjoying the quietness of the almost deserted base. Auke left today for The Netherlands and tomorrow Peter, Ragiel and Arjan will go back to finish their second year project. During the daily meeting a new plan was made for the launch of the Stratos rocket. Fortunately we still have sufficient people to man all the posts needed to launch the Stratos on Monday. The pictures below are not from today but are there to make up for the lack of pictures in the previous posts. Enjoy them.

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Hybrid propulsion update

In the past few months the hybrid propulsion group has been working along with other fellow students in a minor at the TU Delft. A minor is a semester during which students can choose to specialize in a field or discover new areas non-related to their field of study. The minor not only allowed more students to discover rocketry but to get closer to a flight ready design. One significant improvement was the design of a vertical test bench with reduced friction and restrains movement in the vertical direction thus allowing for more accurate data gathering and analysis. Further integration [...]