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Kerbal Space Program Unofficial Model Rocketry Megathread


TeslaPenguin1

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The Notebook Space Program Fleet:

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Green = Active

Yellow = Under Construction or Damaged

Red = Yet to be built, retired, or destroyed

 

Should also be under destroyed section:

Code Red

 

 

Info, in approximate order of acquisition and first flight:

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Somewhat old compilation video with the first Olympian explosion at the end:

Note, I have not flown much recently, last year was busy... My last launch was February, and before that probably August. I have to wait until the fields are harvested so I have a place to fly.

 

@cubinator... If you don't mind me asking, which college do you attend? :) Make sure to keep us posted on that!

 

 

 

Edited by Ultimate Steve
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  On 9/11/2018 at 1:45 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

If you don't mind me asking, which college do you attend? :) Make sure to keep us posted on that!

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U of Minnesota. I'll be getting more information, and get into the team over the coming weeks. The space flight would happen within about 3 years, if we can do it (I bet we can.)

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The only successful flight from my brother's, his friends and I's completely homemade rocket program. From almost exactly a year ago:

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Homemade SRMs are hard! It's not enough to just fill a tube with explodium (KNO3) and let it fly. A big problem was that our clay nozzles kept blowing out which depressurized the motors causing them to stop producing thrust. We fixed this by adding a copper "nozzle" into the center of the clay. You can see the depressurization beautifully in this video of one of our launch failures here:

 

I miss building rockets. It's like KSP but with more risk of losing an eye!

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  On 9/10/2018 at 10:31 PM, cubinator said:

The rocket club at my college flew one up to ~10 km recently. I'm going to try to join them for an actual space shot sometime soon.

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10 kilometers? Thats extremely high! Like, EXTREMELY high for a model rocket. Most model rockets only reach 100-500 meters altitude. 10 kilometers is Copenhagen-Suborbitals level rocketry.

How big was that rocket?

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  On 9/13/2018 at 3:40 PM, NSEP said:

10 kilometers? Thats extremely high! Like, EXTREMELY high for a model rocket. Most model rockets only reach 100-500 meters altitude. 10 kilometers is Copenhagen-Suborbitals level rocketry.

How big was that rocket?

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Technically that would be classified as Amateur Rocketry rather than model rocketry. At the bare minimum it would be high power rocketry (Size H  engines or above). My largest "model" rocket can only do 700 meters theoretically.

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  On 9/13/2018 at 4:13 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Technically that would be classified as Amateur Rocketry rather than model rocketry. At the bare minimum it would be high power rocketry (Size H  engines or above). My largest "model" rocket can only do 700 meters theoretically.

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Really? I have this one book about building model rockets that has instructions for building a two-stage rocket that can go up to about a kilometer. (3400 feet)

But that's only if you use a C6-0 and a C6-7

Edited by TeslaPenguin1
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  On 9/14/2018 at 10:04 PM, TeslaPenguin1 said:

Really? I have this one book about building model rockets that has instructions for building a two-stage rocket that can go up to about a kilometer. (3400 feet)

But that's only if you use a C6-0 and a C6-7

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Probably possible but that most likely involves the most minimal of designs, perfect fin alignment, and probably no paint.

EDIT: The Comanche-3, the highest altitude Estes kit, can do 2250 feet with D12-0 C6-0 and C6-7.

Edited by Ultimate Steve
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  On 9/14/2018 at 10:07 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Probably possible but that most likely involves the most minimal of designs, perfect fin alignment, and probably no paint.

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What? No, it just requires a pretty good finish, 3 fins (3d printed for minimum drag) and one of those fin aligners.

It is a minimum diameter rocket.

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  On 9/14/2018 at 10:09 PM, TeslaPenguin1 said:

What? No, it just requires a pretty good finish, 3 fins (3d printed for minimum drag) and one of those fin aligners.

It is a minimum diameter rocket.

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Edited my above post to refer to my current rocket ^^^. I guess you'd be able to make it more borderline yourself than Estes would be able to make it, so I guess that's where the discrepancy is coming from.

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  On 9/13/2018 at 3:40 PM, NSEP said:

10 kilometers? Thats extremely high! Like, EXTREMELY high for a model rocket. Most model rockets only reach 100-500 meters altitude. 10 kilometers is Copenhagen-Suborbitals level rocketry.

How big was that rocket?

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In the "amature rocket to orbit thread" a forum member named Riven mentioned being in a contest to reach 10km (without exceeding 15km).  Original budget was claimed $60k, but checking the SJSU rocket club website indicated a $10k target budget had been met (but no further mention of a rocket launch).

10km requires (after gravity/aero losses) 500m/s delta-v.

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  On 9/16/2018 at 11:59 PM, TeslaPenguin1 said:

So how much would 1km be?

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Since both the potential energy thanks to height and the kinectic energy of velocity is proportional to the square, I suspect it scales linearly (I've thrown that envelope away), so 50m/s?

Granted, that's 110mph and the speed  I've heard for model rockets is ~300mph (this was from when I was "model rocket aged", so might be very, very off).  But I suspect  model rockets hit an aerodynamic wall once the rocket burns out and 150m/s of delta-v has more than 100m/s of aerolosses in a few hundred meters (gravity losses are non-existent: you need huge TWR for stability (you have to accelerate to a speed where your tailfins aren't stalling before you clear the rod).

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  On 9/17/2018 at 5:50 PM, cubinator said:

Hey, anybody here know how to get multiple engines to ignite at the same time? It's a problem I might be facing soon

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As far as a model rocket goes?

I tried attaching each clip to 2 igniters once, but only one engine fired. For my next attempt I'll probably use two separate launch controllers with short towers on either side of the launch complex to generate slack in the wires so each engine has a longer ignition window.

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  On 9/18/2018 at 4:26 AM, TeslaPenguin1 said:

ignite them in parallel not series

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I did that. Only one ignited.

  On 9/18/2018 at 4:26 AM, TeslaPenguin1 said:

also use a less powerful igniter, like the quest one. But beware!!! The continuity test from the Estes launcher is enough to light one of them

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Learned that the hard way, rocket took off at T-3. A few flights later I told my sister "Hey don't press the button, these are the weak igniters." And guess what she did while I was inches from the rocket, trying to arm the onboard camera.

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This  http://www2.estesrockets.com/pdf/Estes_Igniters_and_their_use.pdf

seemed the best information on the net, and doesn't go much beyond "parallel, not series".  It does go into detail about using a 12V car battery, do you have a sufficient battery (or better yet, ultracapacitor) to do the job?  I can't say I was impressed by the "attach everything by alligator clips", I'd like to make sure the wire can at least follow the rocket up the launch rod before connection is lost.

Two engines shouldn't be much less than half as reliable as one, unless you don't have enough current or the ignition delay is too long.

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  On 9/18/2018 at 6:17 PM, wumpus said:

seemed the best information on the net, and doesn't go much beyond "parallel, not series".  It does go into detail about using a 12V car battery, do you have a sufficient battery (or better yet, ultracapacitor) to do the job?  I can't say I was impressed by the "attach everything by alligator clips", I'd like to make sure the wire can at least follow the rocket up the launch rod before connection is lost.

 

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I have a book about model rockets, called Make: Rockets. It talks a lot about cluster ignition.

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