A new project deserves a new website. On 3 May 2010 DARE launched a new website for the Stratos II project. Throughout the Stratos II project this website will serve as the primary means of communication about the project. We are currently working on getting content into this website and you should expect more very soon.

This week started with a visit to mechanical engineering of the Haagse Hogeschool (HBO). Frank and Arjan met Leon and Michel who will redesign the launch tower. These guys are so enthousiastic that they will also join us on the 6th and 7th may launch days

The most important event this week was the Kooy symposium. During this Symposium Barry, Frank and William represented DARE with a large stand. This stand included the CSL v5, part of v6, the Stratos I mockup and the Stratos I showcase. Today Frank and William dropped of the Stratos I showcase at Dutch Space.

This article was originally published in the TU Delta and written by Olga Motsyk.

Ever wonder what would happen if you launched your computer to an altitude of 12,5 kilometres, then impacted it with the ground at a speed of 230 meters per second, then left it in thawing snow and dirt for half a year, and then tried to extract data from it?

This is exactly what the Stratos team tried to do this month – to find and then extract data from two data cards stored inside the rocket that has been launched earlier this year on March 17, 2009.
A GPS system on board the Stratos rocket transmitted the altitude and impact site coordinates to a telemetry station on the ground. Immediately after the launch, a recovery team was dispatched to the transmitted coordinates to search for Stratos.

Unfortunately, at that time, the team failed to find the rocket, owing to the huge amounts of snow and the difficult terrain at the impact site.
Two weeks ago – some six months after the launch – a recovery team, led by Stratos project leader, Mark Uitendaal, and safety officer, Hein Olthof, returned to the impact site in order to once again try to recover the remains of the rocket. The main reason for this operation was the valuable flight data stored on the two Secure Digital (SD) cards in the electronics and payload modules of the rocket: there had been strong convictions among some of the team members that the actual maximum altitude was higher than that transmitted by the onboard GPS, and the flight data could confirm this theory.

Stratos’ impact coordinates, obtained from the telemetry transmissions, were located approximately 16 kilometres from the launch site. Since no other means of transportation were available, this distance had to be covered on foot. The recovery team was forced to hike through rough, bushy terrain, cross two rivers (one by boat and the other on foot), a swampy area, and thick woods – all in the name of science!
Finally, on the second day of their quest, the team discovered the Stratos remains just 41 meters from the coordinates last transmitted by the rocket before impact.

Back at TU Delft, the recovered remains were then dissected to retrieve the SD cards, from which it was hoped that some flight data could be extracted. One of the SD cards was completely obliterated, and while the other card initially showed signs of promise, as it was battered but still mostly in one piece, it soon became depressingly apparent that any data stored on this card was also lost.

Although no data was extracted from the electronics module, this recovery did constitute an important milestone: it concluded the final chapter in the Stratos book of rocket history. Dare is now ready to launch new and exciting projects and reach higher and higher altitudes.

On Tuesday afternoon, DARE was given a place on the wall of fame of the faculty of Aerospace Engineering for its accomplishment with the Stratos project.

Disguised as a post flight meeting, the Stratos team members were invited to the faculty, where they found out that the “post flight meeting” was actually a celebration for breaking the European altitude record. Dean Jacco Hoekstra, Rector Magnificus Jacob Fokkema and CEO of Dutch Space Bart Reijnen congratulated the Stratos team and team leader Mark in special with what they called a magnificent achievement. Dean Hoekstra said that he hoped that after the “Nuna effect” the faculty of Aerospace Engineering and the TU Delft as a whole would profit from a “Stratos effect” which shows high school students that on TU Delft it is possible to achieve your dreams.

The wall of fame is a wall on the faculty of Aerospace Engineering directly after the entrance in the main hall where exceptional achievements by Aerospace students and employees are commemorated. As of today Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering is present on this wall with Stratos.

Also, a picture from the flight:

After the success of yesterday most people of Stratos team flew back to the Netherlands. Mark, Hein and Eric cleaned up the last traces of our visit to Esrange and will visit the Northern Cape and then drive back to Holland. Today new pictures and videos were send to us and are now available on our website. We were amazed by all the congratulations we got from people all over Europe ranging from friends and family till fellow rocket enthusiasts.

For the moment the search for the capsule stopped. The last coordinates obtained from the capsule are in heavily forested and steep terrain. When the snow is melted Esrange will attempt a second try to recover the capsule. We know that the capsule landed with 250 m/s. This means that the parachute did not deploy. We have some good theories about why this happened and how we can solve this but this is only speculation as long as we do not get the SD cards with the data.

From the data we have we suspect that we went higher then 12.5 km. The capsule will provide us with more certainty if this suspicion is correct.

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Production of the concept launcher

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