The Fredericksburg Engineering Rocket Program completed the junior class rocket portion of their year, successfully at Fredericksburg Rockets 2018 on Thursday. The class was split this year into two teams. PITA (Team 1) and Muesebach (Team 2), each of which researched, designed and built their own rocket.
Both teams’ vehicles were loaded onto and launched off of Transonic rails, recovered and they were able to analyze data.
Team 1 which actually launched second and was the fourth to last launch of the day, is shown below with their rocket.
At Stage 3 awaiting approval to go to Pad.
Loaded on Foxtrot Rail awaiting launch.
Team 1’s rocket, labeled as rocket #34 had a beautiful lift off from the rail, but before reaching its full height went into a cork screw spin, nosed over and began a ballistic decent. It landed hard on its side in a field to the left of the Pad and charges didn’t deploy until hitting the ground. It was fully recovered which enabled them to get data from the rocket. Their vehicle reached 588 mph, 0.78 Mach.
Below are pictures from its launch.
Muesebach, Team 2 launched shortly after lunch time, much earlier than Team 1. Their rocket was labeled #28. Below they are seen with their rocket waiting for approval at Stage 3.
Team 2 had an awesome flight with full deployment and recovery. The rocket flew to a height of 11,232 feet at a speed of 763.6 miles per hour. The vehicle broke the first sound barrier at 1.027 Mach. Unfortunately their camera did not turn on properly so no flight video, and their payload which was a bag of CheetosCheezits which was supposed to burst open due to pressure drop, was still intact, the bag did not open. Congratulations on breaking the sound barrier.
Below is a sequence from their launch.
This was the pinnacle event for the juniors. They will be presenting the results of the data from their flight at a later date. Please watch for that update. After their final progress reviews we will pick up with them next year as seniors when they begin their Goddard level project and attempt to launch at White Sands Missile Range.
Congratulations to both teams on a job well done!
This article is the sixth in a series for this school year ’17/’18 of updates that have followed the Fredericksburg Engineering/Rocket program. This school is a participant of the SystemsGo program. This series of articles is intended to support, encourage, and challenge students in the program as they share their working status and accomplishments throughout the year in the program. These publications will be available for tags and re-posting.
http://www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org . Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.
#Rockets2018 #SystemsGo #FredricksburgEngineeringRocketProgram #Launcher01 #RideTheSky
On the Wings of Angels 