In May the Stratos II concept launcher was launched; a rocket to test components developed for the Stratos II project. Another successful launch of the rocket was performed on the 9th of September, after an aborted launch attempt in June.

After not being able to launch on the previous launch day in June, due to problems with other rockets that were also scheduled that day, only little work had to be done to prepare for flight in September. With only minor adjustments to the electronics and release mechanisms, the rocket was soon ready for launch.

This time the spectators could enjoy a successful launch: after ignition the rocket successfully left the tower. After 15 seconds the rocket reached apogee, and separated the nose cone from the motor. The separation of the nosecone and the ejection of the parachute worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, although the parachute folded in the squid bag did eject from the nose cone, the actual parachute deployment from the squid bag did not occur. This resulted in a rather rough touchdown and a flattened nose cone.

However all flight data stored in four SD cards survived, making this launch a success. We now know which subsystems perform as expected and which subsystems need a makeover.
As the remains of our rocket are no longer airworthy, a new concept launcher will be made. With the knowledge gained from the last launch we are ready to make the change from provisional prototypes to well designed components. These will also be designed to withstand the complete operating conditions of the final Stratos II. We are making good progress, but a lot of testing still lies ahead.

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.

 

As mentioned a few months ago we will launch a concept version of the Stratos II rocket. This Concept Launcher will only contain the upper part of the Stratos II rocket, being the nose cone and adjacent payload section. It will be propelled by the booster motor that powered Stratos I.

With this launch we hope to test our innovative separation, mechanism, the so called clamp band. A video of this system can be viewed below:

The original plan was to launch the rocket last year’s autumn. Unfortunately due to storage problems with the motors, we were not able to launch the rocket at that time. We had to wait for the next launch opportunity, which will be next on Friday the 13th. We will launch this rocket to an altitude of approximately 1 km at the artillery base ‘t Harde. We are confident in a successful flight, which will bring us one step closer to the launch of the final Stratos rocket.

Unfortunately the NERO who invited us to launch our rocket on their launch day had to cancel this day. Therefore we have to postpone the launch of the concept launcher. The next opportunity is during NLD 33 of the NAVRO in the spring of 2011.

However this gives us the opportunity to perform the already planned drop and wind tunnel tests before we launch the rocket. Therefore we can launch a better and improved concept launcher in the spring.

The last couple of weeks, production on the ‘Concept Launcher‘ has finished. The Concept Launcher is developed as an operational test vehicle for the Stratos II Capsule.

It will enable in-flight tests of different critical subsystems, like the ‘clamp-band’ separation system, the innovative recovery system and the complex flight computer. The Concept launcher will improve our knowledge of the capsule and build up the necessary experience to fly the Stratos II rocket to 50 km in 2012.
The team worked very hard last weeks to have a Concept launcher with working basic systems. The electronics have been finished this summer,  important parts for the motor module have been produced last week. And the innovative inner structure has been produced in the compositeLAB. The rocket was ready to be launched during last Friday’s launch campaign.
However due to storage problems there was not enough propellant to propel it skywards. So the launch has been postponed till the next opportunity next year. It will be a good start for an elaborate test program this fall and winter. Building knowledge and confidence in our systems. 2011 will be filled with launches starting in spring!
Recently we tested the ClampBand system and it works like a dream, look at the video!!

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Dawn flight engine ready to go

On Thursday the 3th of May 2012, the hybrid propulsion team of the Stratos II project (named Dawn) successfully tested their flight engine. This hybrid rocket engine has been developed based on the research they have done during the whole span of the project. Now finally they are ready to go for the first attempt in the history of DARE to launch a hybrid rocket engine. The team has kept to their original design of an engine with a sorbitol fuel grain and a nitrous oxide oxidizer. To store the oxidizer the tank concept developed during the Spacecraft Engineering Minor [...]