Tag Archives: solid motor

MTA Launch Event, 2021-10-16

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by Bill Claybaugh and Dave Nordling, RRS

This firing report will be the first in a series of three articles posted on RRS.ORG. This report will cover the launch event and preparations over many days made by RRS member, Bill Claybaugh. As the attending pyrotechnic operator for this firing event, I have summarized this work for the benefit of our readers with the permission and oversight of Bill.

Bill Claybaugh has been planning to build, load and launch a large 6-inch solid motor for many months and the first attempt had finally come to pass at the RRS Mojave Test Area (MTA) over the span of almost a week starting Tuesday, October 12 and culminating in a launch on Saturday, October 16, 2021. He had studied this project very carefully and built a great many new parts and tools from his home in Colorado. The scope of this project is quite extensive and the larger goal was to enable larger solid motor building by other members of the RRS at the MTA. The 6-inch motor was just the first in what will hopefully be a growing series of similar and larger scale solid motors.

Bill Claybaugh’s description of his six-inch rocket from his Flight Readiness Review presentation.

The predicted performance of this 6-inch single grain motor was 1350 lbf of thrust for a duration of 8.35 seconds which was expected to exceed 70,000 feet; well above the RRS MTA’s standard 50,000 foot altitude waiver. This “P” sized solid motor in this vehicle required an FAA Certificate of Authorization (COA) for this flight on the prescribed dates during daylight hours. The submission of Monte Carlo simulations of the trajectory (splash analysis) were graciously performed by Chuck Rogers (author of the RASAero II software) and a necessary part of the process to verify no significant concerns for impacting nearby populated areas or structures. Also, the FAA Class 3 rocket waiver that was granted would require the launch team to contact the relevant air traffic control 15 minutes in advance of the intended launch for final permission to proceed. A separate article discussing this subject in more detail will be coming soon.

The rocket had two streamers for a recovery system which were intended to be sufficient for easier spotting of the rocket in descent rather than provide a soft landing.

Many members of the society participated in this project over the several days needed to prepare and conduct the mixing, pouring and casting process. RRS members Dave Crisalli and George Garboden lended their time and expertise in solid motor building which led to a stellar finished product on Thursday. Several of Bill’s family and friends attended and supported the preparations for launch.

Bill Claybaugh’s four-finned rocket with an end view of the four-fin 6-inch single-grain motor loaded and ready for the nozzle installation. RRS president, Osvaldo Tarditti, talks with Bill on the morning before launch.
The forward and aft views of the nozzle assembly of the Claybaugh six-inch rocket.
Bill Claybaugh holds his payload system without the fiberglass long-ogive nosecone cover.
Pictures of the different parts of the pneumatic separation system and payload.
Ed Wranoski finishes the mating of the payload on top of the single stage solid motor checking the alignment before preparing to move the rocket to the launch pad.

Given the size of the 6-inch rocket, Bill designed and built a T-slot type of launch rail with a 24-foot length on an aluminum truss structure. The system was designed to be deployed in a green-field site and easily assembled by a small team of people. There were some challenges in getting the design to work but through the combined efforts of those at the site during the afternoon and early evening on Friday, the erecting and loading process was safely completed. Susan and Ed Wranoski both had a lot of great suggestions about getting the right placement of the come-alongs to bring the launcher up to a sufficient angle to secure it by the chains and strap anchors around the pad.

The new launch rail system will be the subject of a separate article coming later on RRS.ORG. Design improvements and substantial changes are being planned such that the next launch event will have an easier time in raising and lowering this important asset for the launching of larger rockets from the MTA.

Testing of the erecting process took place into the early evening by headlights. These operations provided valuable information making launch preparations the following morning far simpler.
Bill Claybaugh, Mike Pohlmiller and Ed Wranoski secured the 6-inch rocket by two bellybands in flyaway railguide system.

During the first launch operations of the rocket, the wireless telemetry wasn’t receiving signals. After restarting the computer and replacing the nosecone, the pyrotechnic charges in the recovery system accidentally fired due to a short. The payload system was removed, inspected and replacement pyrotechnic charges installed. After protecting the terminals from a similar short during final installation of the payload and nosecone, the telemetry system was working and the launch could proceed.

The nosecone being replaced after a quick test of the payload system.
Bill’s 6-inch rocket on the rails and secured for launch.

The launch event coincided with the launch operations of our neighbors’ (FAR). We were in constant communication to assure everyone was under cover at the proper times. The weiather was nearly ideal with very low winds the whole day. After road and air checks were completed, we prepared for launch.

Bill Claybaugh prepares for firing with RRS president, Osvaldo Tarditti, amd others ready to film and photograph the launch.
Still captured from the launch footage showing the rocket clearing the tower.
Last still picture of Bill’s 6-inch rocket before going out of view of the camera.

The initial launch was swift and powerful as the motor ignited and came to full thrust leaving the launch rail. The rocket canted to the northeast opposite the intended direction of the launch rail and the vehicle appeared to corkscrew as the motor burned to its full duration before going out of sight. The recovery system appears to have fired early as one of the streamers and the entire payload module fell back to the northern side of the MTA. The spent rocket motor casing has not yet been recovered. Bill was able to bring back the payload segment for inspection at the MTA while others continued the search for the rocket.

Bill disassembles the recovered payload system after its short descent back to the ground.
Both pyrotechnic separation charges had fired.
The antenna snapped off and was not found.
Recovered flyaway railguides showed signs of recontact from the tail fins from the sharp tears and rips seen. This is a common occurrence with flyaway railguides and they can be refurbished for the next flight.

Based on review of video footage, it appears the sudden turn uprange occurred at around 100 feet and took less than 1/4 second.  The current thinking is that the separation system depressurized, producing the side-thrust that caused the sharp turn after leaving the rail. It is assumed the telemetry loss of signal (LOS) was a result of the antenna snapping off during this sudden turn. LOS occurred at 119 feet and 425 ft/sec. About 0.25 seconds later, the payload can be seen starting to fall away from the rocket which can only occur if the system is depressurized. The payload was recovered about 300 feet from the launch tower and on the ‘new’ azimuth.

After the initiators fire–and both were fired–it would be expected that applying pressure to the quick-disconnect (QD) fitting would:

(1.) NOT result in the four retention pins extending, and,

(2.) would cause venting through the diffusers. 

That is, the burst disk is supposed to be punctured due to the piston driving the hammer through it when the initiators fired and any gas generated in the system is vented past the burst disk and through the diffusers.

The recovered flight hardware instead extended all four pins, did not vent through the diffuser, and did vent through the outlet reserved for the hot initiator gases.  This means that the burst disk was not opened and pressurizing gas was somehow leaking into the hot gas circuit.  The image below of the burst disk shows its condition as found upon opening.

Burst disk valve distorted but not penetrated as designed.


Further disassembly showed that the O-ring seal separating the hot and cold gas circuits around the hammer that penetrates the burst disk appeared damaged from heat. That seal damage was allowing the cold gas to escape into the hot gas circuit and then vent. Further, the O-ring prevented hot gas from getting to the subject O-ring around the piston that drives the hammer through the burst disk was in two pieces and showed clear evidence for melting at the edges. Thus, when the dual-redundant initiators fired, the piston O-ring failed (or had previously failed, although it was undamaged when installed) which allowed hot gas to leak past the piston (which nonetheless hit the burst disk hard enough to dent it but not tear it) and to damage the O-ring separating the hot-gas and cold-gas circuits in the valve. These two damaged O-rings then allowed cold gas to vent via the hot gas circuit, resulting in the payload seperating from the rocket.

Naturally, none of these failures ever occured in previous ground testing.

Wind shear was considered as a cause for the sudden change in vehicle direction witnessed during launch right after clearing the rail. Even in calm wind conditions on the ground, there have been past launch events at the MTA which have had sharp unseen discontinuities in the wind profile causing serious perturbation of the flight path in a rocket flight. This potential cause can not be fully excluded, but it is thought to be unlikely..

The venting of the hot and cold gas _may_ have caused the sudden pitch over as seen in video footage. As of now, this is being carried as a working hypothesis.  However, none of this explains why the initiators apparently fired a few fractions of a second after lift-off.

The telemetry data will soon be downloaded from the ground station to see if there was any indication of the beginning of this sequence of events. Because the ground station showed loss of signal (LOS) at 119 feet, and that LOS appears to have been the result of the antenna snapping off in the course of the sudden pitch change. There might not be any recorded data of the relevant accelerations or rates from the ground station.

This report will be updated as new information becomes available.

Examining the launch rail and supporting cables before the planned lowering.
Former RRS member, Kevin Sagis helps in gradually releasing the come-along chain bringing the heavy launch rail back to horizontal as the rest of the team managed the straps.

In conclusion of that day’s launch event, with the recovered parts from the rocket payload examined and packed for shipment back to Bill’s home, the remaining team worked to carefully lower the launch rail back to horizontal using the reversed process used to successfully and safely raise it. The launch rail support legs were left at the MTA as Bill and Mike Pohlmiller were going to consider a new design approach using the same T-slot backbone. Although there was no evidence of the rocket hanging up on any discontinuity, some repairs of the interconnections between the three segments should allow the combined rail path to be more straight.

The RRS is grateful to the many members and participants we had over those several few days. It was a big success despite some significant challenges and disappointment in the results. The project was designed to be a pathfinder to subsequent large solid motor projects and we expect the next motor build and improved payload system design in the new calendar year, 2022.

MTA launch, 2020-03-01

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by Dave Nordling, RRS.ORG

The RRS held a launch event on Sunday, March 1st, 2020, at the Mojave Test Area.  It was a brisk morning with steady winds that occasionally slowed enough for a safe launch.

This launch event was originally for a university static fire and a few member projects.  The university had to reschedule but we had sufficient interest from our own projects so we held the event.

View from behind the RRS MTA large test stand, 2020-03-01

The weather was a concern with passing storms and rain predicted earlier in the week.  But as often happens, the weather shifted for the better on launch day with winds staying low enough to launch most of our projects.

Wolfram’s booster sits on its stand in the Dosa Building

Wolfram has been working for a few years on his Gas Guzzler ramjet rocket. He is just now entering the first system flight tests to demonstrate the staging and recovery systems.  He filled his ramjet with water in place of the gasoline to have a representative weight.

The Gas GUzzler booster stage on the 1515 rails, loaded and ready
Both stages of the Gas Guzzler sit on the 1515 rails as Wolfram inspects the fit between them

Wolfram was able to load his booster on to the 1515 rails with good alignment. His upper stage had some alignment problems due to using a different prototype for this initial flight.  After some examinations on the pad, he pulled his rocket stages back to the Dosa building for internal adjustments to assure a clean fit between the booster and upper stage.

Kieth Yoerg’s rocket, Charlie Horse is made ready for flight from the 1010 rail
Charlie Horse rises on the black plume of a Smoky Sam high-powered motor.

The next launch was Keith Yoerg’s high powered rocket, Charlie Horse.  He used an I-350 Smoky Sam motor and had a dual-deployment system with a GPS tracker built in.  The flight was smooth off the rails but the trajectory data seemed to show a steady wind pushing west to east. He reached an apogee of around 4000 feet. Recovery wasn’t a problem as his rocket landed just a hundred yards east of the RRS MTA.

Wolfram stands with his ramjet upper stage and its broken cowl piece. Some rework will be required.

Wolfram returned his rocket to the pad but accidentally dropped the second stage breaking a piece of the ramjet plastic cowl on the concrete below.  With this significant disruption of the aerodynamic surface, he was forced to abort the flight and rework this part.  He was also going to check some of the other parts in his assembly for this long-awaited first flight.  It’s important to not rush a project and wait until all is ready for a successful flight.

Osvaldo and Larry check the payload packaging of the hybrid rocket one last time
The hybrid motor is installed and ready for today’s launch.

The next flight was to be the hybrid rocket that Larry, Osvaldo and I have been working. The Contrails H222 motor was safely loaded from last month and after some improvements to the vehicle body for better parachute recovery functions, we felt we were ready.

The winds were still favorable so we proceeded with clearing the area and making our electrical connections back to the old blockhouse.  With just a handful of people and the lightweight vehicle, the old blockhouse was sufficient for our operations that day.

The RRS nitrous oxide bottle ready to fill our hybrid rocket motor

The nitrous bottle was refilled from the prior week and the manifold was plumbed to the vehicle tank.  With the opening of the nitrous bottle, remote operations could begin.  The time of tanking the small 38mm H-motor tank was not precisely known, but was not expected to take very long given basic calculations of the available flow rate.  As expected, the tank volume primed within 15-20 seconds.  We waited a full minute as we were initially unsure of whether the full volume was filled with liquid.  After spotting a jet of liquid escaping from the vehicle body vent, we were assured that the hybrid motor was ready to be ignited. 

Osvaldo conducted the firing operation after a short five-count. The resistor and Pyrodex charge ignited after a slight delay for the resistor to heat up sufficiently. The motor seemed to reach full thrust quickly and leave the rail as expected from the thrust curves from this commercial motor.

Kieth Yoerg’s onboard camera takes a test photo of me loading the hybrid motor on the 1010 rail

The vehicle was spotted tumbling after leaving the rails leading us to believe the rocket was not properly balanced.  More detailed calculations would have been beneficial, but from initial estimates and the heavier recovery system in the extended rocket body, it was believed the rocket would be stable enough.

Examination of Osvaldo’s high speed camera footage from the hybrid flight revealed the reason for the vehicle tumbling.  Some of the frames show that the nitrous fill line remained attached to the rocket during launch and even after clearing the rails. The fill line did snap loose in the flight at some point, but it was supposed to completely sever at ignition.  This imparted a significant torque to the vehicle leading to a tumbling and short trajectory back to ground.

Note the nylon filling line is still attached as the rocket leaves the rails
Just a little later in the high speed footage the fill line and igniter cable start to come out, but the rocket is already knocked off course.
Both the fill line and cables are free of the rocket while the nitrous still flows over the fuel grain and the motor is lit.

Worse, in my rush to get the hybrid loaded on the rails and made ready for filling operations, I forgot to arm the recovery system.  This is a classic mistake and one that I could have easily avoided. 

At least, the other issues with the flight limited the distance the rocket travelled.  The rocket was recovered just north of the 1010 launch rail still within the bounds of the MTA.  The rocket landed on its nose breaking it and significant body tube damage was sustained. After disassembling the hybrid motor from the body, we opted to scrap the rocket body and rebuild a new one for the next flight.  The fill and fire operations were successful and the equipment we built worked fine.

The first hybrid rocket destroyed in flight. A new rocket build will start soon.
The spent hybrid fuel grain extracted from the Controls H222 motor tube.

The Contrails H222 motor parts survived well. We were able to easily remove the motor assembly and disassembled the parts for inspection. The graphite nozzle showed very little ablation and will be reused.  None of the parts had heat damage.  The fuel grain didn’t exhibit much ablation as compared to the other unburned grains we had. The burn duration in flight seemed to be similar to what is shown on the thrust curve, but this should be reviewed against the flight footage.

More review of the flight footage will be necessary to better understand how the hybrid motor operated. We are considering changing the ignition method to use an electric match and maybe a shape charge that would better ignite the hybrid motor.

We are considering building a static testing rig for the hybrid motor to verify some changes we intend to try with the ignition.  There will be more on this subject in later reports.

Larry holds his experimental solid motor, a simple end burner to test his mixture
Larry suspends his motor from an old steel rod from our modular rail system still under repair

Larry Hoffing had built a custom composite solid rocket motor using a spent casing from a commercial solid motor. This simple end-burner grain also had a custom-made nozzle.  Larry had suspended his experimental motor a length of metal piping threaded on our large adjustable box rails that is still undergoing refurbishment.

Still image from Larry’s motor firing, rapid overpressurization just after ignition

Unfortunately, Larry’s motor design was not successful and rapidly overpressurized scattering both end caps and propellant grain fragments across the desert floor.  No fires resulted from this static firing failure and no serious damage was done to nearby structures used for this demonstration.

Larry’s motor case ripped at both ends, back to the drawing board

The last launch attempt was Keith Yoerg’s smaller model rockets using the tiny B and C motors.  The winds became stronger as the day progressed and by that time sustained wind levels were too high for any launch particularly for such a small vehicle.  These rockets would be saved for a later event and Keith began examining his Charlie Horse rocket and its camera footage.

Kieth’s model rocket launcher being brought back to the Dosa Building as high winds prevented further launches that day.
Tiny desert flowers bloom in the spring at the RRS MTA

It was a good day for the RRS to have a launch event exclusively for our member projects. We plan to hold more of these events for both universities and our membership very soon.

MTA launch, 2020-02-22

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by Dave Nordling, RRS.ORG

The Reaction Research Society (RRS) held a launch and static fire event for three UCLA teams and one of our own RRS teams at the Mojave Test Area (MTA) on Saturday, 2/22/2020. Poor weather was a persistent threat from the day before with light rains coming and going from the early morning hours and even throughout the launch day. Winds calmed just enough for a successful rail launch of UCLA’s solid rocket motor. Fortune favors the bold and this proverb did not disappoint our participants that day at the MTA.

Rain clouds still filled the skies on a very calm morning. Preparations began for UCLA’s solid rocket motor launch from our rail.

With the liquid and hybrid rockets, Osvaldo Tarditti, our RRS president was our pyro-op in charge. I served as his apprentice for this event as part of building my experience for becoming a pyrotechnic operator 1st Class. This was the second of two apprenticeships I have served under two first class pyrotechnic operators. Osvaldo gave our safety briefing to all of our attendees that day before beginning the scheduled events.

UCLA gathers around to hear our safety briefing. Most have been to the RRS MTA before but we give the briefing each time to reinforce good practices.

UCLA had three projects ready for flight or static-fire at the MTA. The first was the solid motor driven rocket built by the UCLA Project Prometheus team. They were using a commercial K-sized motor with a vehicle equipped with a downward-facing camera built into the lower body.

UCLA’s Project Prometheus built a rail-launched rocket with a commercial solid motor.
The Gerald Ticonderocket in the color scheme of a common wooden pencil.

Elizabeth, the UCLA team leader for this solid rocket project assisted me with the launch preparations. The rail launched rocket worked perfectly and the recovery system operation was visually confirmed as it descended to the west of our launch site.

My 2-1/2 inch rocket with a commercial H-222 hybrid motor from Contrails Rocketry. The body has been extended for better packaging.
The motor has been successfully loaded into the body tube complete with retainer. All that remains is to complete the recovery system packaging and find our next opportunity to launch.

Larry, Osvaldo and I have made progress on improving the 2-1/2 inch rocket with a commercial H-sized hybrid motor. Larry made an extension on the payload tube to fit all of the recovery system more easily. We have the Contrails H222 motor fully integrated and ready for loading.

The RRS reloaded and refurbished our nitrous bottle and valve manifold, but we didn’t get to loading operations.

Our nitrous bottle was refurbished and reloaded for the testing and we successfully conducted a valve test of the manifold that verified that our control box works well. We were reworking the black powder charge and repacking the parachute when the weather shifted and the winds picked up.

Weather changes quickly in the desert. Our smaller rocket missed our window for launch that day.

The weather was perfect 15 minutes earlier with the launch of UCLA’s solid motor, but at the time we were discussing launch of our hybrid motor it became clear the weather would be getting worse and winds too strong for launch of a smaller rocket such as ours. Since the RRS will be returning to the MTA site on Sunday, March 1. We figured we would do some minor improvements to the payload packaging and try again when we are fully confident and hopefully with better weather for the flight.

The hybrid motor is secured to the RRS I-beam. This is one of the very first assets of the society which predates our arrival to this MTA site.
UCLA hybrid rocket team making load cell adjustments on their thrust stand before hot-fire.

UCLA’s hybrid rocket team under the same name, Project Prometheus, sought to static fire a commercial M-sized hybrid motor as part of getting ready for a flight later this semester. They secured their test stand vertically to our historical I-beam location which was the original article from even before the RRS moved to the current MTA site in 1955. The RRS was glad to assist UCLA in securing to this location and making ready for nitrous oxide fill operations then ignition for static fire measurements.

Hot-fire of the hybrid motor took place around 5pm which by all appearances was a success. The motor case was intact and post-flight assessments looked promising, but an error in data acquisition resulted in no thrust measurements being recorded despite successes in pre-test checkout. UCLA is considering re-attempting this testing at the RRS MTA very soon.

UCLA working on their liquid rocket’s pressurant system.

The last of the three projects would be the static fire of the liquid rocket for Project Ares. The liquid rocket team mounted their hardware to the vertical test stand simultaneously as the hybrid rocket team mounted to the I-beam thrust stand. Both teams worked hard to be ready before the other but in the end, the liquid rocket took longer to be ready.

This would be a second attempt to static fire their liquid rocket system from 2/1/2020 at the RRS MTA. UCLA had been finding and fixing leaks in their pressurization system in the weeks leading before this test.

Making some preliminary checks before commencing liquid oxygen tanking of the rocket.

They proved their fixes before departing to the RRS MTA, but again ran into problems with leakage in the pressurant system. After several more repairs and discussion with the team and pyro-op in charge, the decision was made to proceed. All other systems had passed checks and the leak rates measured were consistent and would only reduce the burn time while assuring safe engine hot-fire.

UCLA begins the final operations following their proven checklist.

Around 5:30pm in the last light of that long day, UCLA’s liquid rocket was proven in a brilliant, steady and powerful hot-fire of their ethanol-LOX propellant liquid rocket. It was an exciting time which showed reasonable thrust results that led UCLA to conclude that the testing that day was sufficient to proceed with flight vehicle integration operations for their motor.

UCLA’s static fire on 02/22/2020 was steady and well controlled.
All initial inspections of the liquid motor looked good. Preliminary review of the data was encouraging and will be useful in grounding their vehicle performance predictions.
In the last rays of daylight, all three UCLA teams pose with their project’s pride at the RRS MTA vertical test stand.

UCLA did a great job of cleaning up at the site. They also returned the LOX dewar back to the nearby Friends of Amateur Rocketry site. We’re thankful to everyone who made this day a triple success. Our next launch event is scheduled for March 1st. We’ll also discuss this and our other recent MTA events at the next RRS meeting on March 13, 2020.