Possible bonus flights in January
(Dec. 30, 2010 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH)
There might be an opportunity for some launches this coming January 15th 2010 — weather and life permitting!
If so, there are two missions under consideration.
One is a “redo” of the high performance / high altitude attempt with the Perseus X4 Booster, Columbia. The goal will be to see how close to the 2,000 foot mark we can get. To do this, Columbia will be flying light and lean. No cameras or payloads will be onboard besides our light weight altimeter.
X4 - Columbia being prepped for a possible high altitude / high performance mission...
The second mission will be a general test of our standard recovery system in winter weather using one of the X2 Artemis boosters. We had a number of elastic shock cord failures while in Dayton during TORC Fest, and the possible series of tests will be to see if these failures were due to the cold temperatures. These failures have lead to the use of Kevlar shock cords, which are not as forgiving to the rocket airframes under less than ideal parachute deployments. The results of the tests will determine the direction to use in future launches.
More information later!
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