Ignitor fire-tested

The MIT Rocket Team conducted their first successful, repeatable, liquid fuel ignitor test in November. The flame was very impressive and can be turned on without any noticable delay. This is the first step in the team's development of a liquid-fuel ignitor which can be integrated with our 4th-generation engine. More details can be seen on the photos and movies pages.

Solid-fuel rocket successfully launched!

August 26, 2002 - Cambridge, MA

 The MIT Rocket Team successfully launched a 14 foot, solid-fuel test rocket this past Saturday. The launch was the culmination of summer work by four UROP students. Dan, Nicholas, and Mike worked to obtain their level 1 certification in high-power rocketry earlier this summer, and Dan was able to qualify for his level 2 certification with the launch on Saturday. They have been working on high-power rocketry in order to provide test facilities for the surround-video payload that will be launched on the rocket team's liquid-fueled engine. Ben, another UROP student, has been working on payload development, and he had a test camera on-board the rocket which successfully relayed video from the rocket.

 Carl Dietrich was on hand for the launch, and provided the following description of the day's events:

The launch day skies were gray with overcast clouds at 2000'. We arrived at lab at 8am to load the rocket and support equipment into various cars. By 8:30 we were on the road. The drive took about an hour and a quarter. By the time we arrived in the field a few miles outside of Middleboro, there were already about 10 experimental rocketeers at the site. All of the launches and test firings that I saw were at least marginally successful. They even had a guy who was launching a nitrous powered hybrid rocket.

Our launch was the one of the last of the day because we had to modify their launch rail with the rail we borrowed from some friends on the Boston University team (who were over in the concrete bunker down the road static testing their N size motor). There were a few hiccups as usual; we relied quite a bit on the assistance of Oliver and the other organizers -- they were all incredibly helpful. Despite some last minute problems, the actual flight went off without a hitch.

There was basically no wind -- the top speed I measured the whole day was only 5MPH, and when we launched I couldn't detect anything -- truly ideal conditions. The flight was as straight as you could imagine, and the drogue chute popped out right at apogee -- I screwed up the camera work so we missed that part of the video, but then the main chute deployed perfectly when the vehicle fell below 200ft (which I have on tape). The apogee of the flight was 855 feet according to the on-board altimeter which was right within the expected range (800-1100 feet).

Since there was no wind, the vehicle landed only about 50 feet from the launch pad --pretty incredible and awfully convenient for us since we did not have to go walking through the high grass. We rounded out the day by packing up our stuff and eating a late picnic lunch which the Keesee's brought for the team.

Congratulations to our UROP students for a job well done!