Hyperion--TRA Level 3 Build

Waiting with breathless anticipation...

I am sad to report that Hyperion has been lost to the tree gods.

It was a spectacular flight on an M1450 KBA White. Estimated altitude about 7000 feet.

Then my main popped at apogee. We watched that thing drift forever.


I go to get my receiver. My receiver shows coordinates that show the rocket still sitting on the launch pad. Insert expletive.


We drove around looking in the area that we saw it come down. No luck.

I'll upload pictures when I get home.


It was great meeting you all at LDRS, I really enjoyed putting names to faces.

Sorry to hear that Matt. Good work on the build, and the up part. Recovery bedevils us all.

blackbrandt said:

I go to get my receiver. My receiver shows coordinates that show the rocket still sitting on the launch pad. Insert expletive.

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Hate to say it, but I wouldn't use Egg-anything for an L3 attempt.

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like crossed connections or the payload bay put in upside down. I've done that before. Luckily, I caught it before putting on the top.

Good luck on your next l3! You'll get it.

FYI, I've never had issues with eggtimers or eggfinder myself.

mccordmw said:

Sorry to hear that. Sounds like crossed connections or the payload bay put in upside down. I've done that before. Luckily, I caught it before putting on the top.

Good luck on your next l3! You'll get it.

FYI, I've never had issues with eggtimers or eggfinder myself.

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+1 sorry to hear about the loss. I too have zero issues flying Eggtimer products, and my L3 attempt had two in it, a Quark riding shotgun for the RRC3 and a TRS for tracking in the nose.

Ooof I'm so sorry to hear this. Any idea what caused the main to pop? How much did your nose cone weigh?

Man sorry to hear that - hope you get it back. So you saw it come down!? Man don't give up, you can find it.
I like the drone idea, Have the announcer ask for someone with a drone.

Nick@JET said:

Man sorry to hear that - hope you get it back. So you saw it come down!? Man don't give up, you can find it.
I like the drone idea, Have the announcer ask for someone with a drone.

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did you get a photo of it dropping? If you did, and you know the length of the booster, and some info about the lens construction, you can figure out how far away it is. I did it once and the farmer wound up finding it right where we guessed it'd be.

Man, sorry about the loss. Any chance you put your name and phone number on it. It's so big, some local or farmer is bound to see it.

Swissyhawk said:

Man, sorry about the loss. Any chance you put your name and phone number on it. It's so big, some local or farmer is bound to see it.

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I did, but it's on the tube for the tracker taped to the shock cord. I should have written it larger in the rocket itself.

DavidMcCann said:

did you get a photo of it dropping? If you did, and you know the length of the booster, and some info about the lens construction, you can figure out how far away it is. I did it once and the farmer wound up finding it right where we guessed it'd be.

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No. We completely lost track of it after 3K or so.

Bummer man, I was rooting for you. Good luck with the next flights.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

That is really unfortunate, I know you put a lot into this build.

What's the new plan? Summer rebuild, or....Take advantage of UAH and build here!?

Nice boost, bummer on the recovery. Here are my shots.

Nytrunner said:

That is really unfortunate, I know you put a lot into this build.

What's the new plan? Summer rebuild, or....Take advantage of UAH and build here!?

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Honestly don't know. Hoping it gets found. I might have someone with a drone go out and see what they can find.

There is a $50 bounty on this rocket.

THarrison said:

Nice boost, bummer on the recovery. Here are my shots.

View attachment 316856View attachment 316857

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I have a new lock screen on my phone now. That's awesome. Thank you

Sorry kid. Next time consider 2 tracking devices!

I know a lot of work went into this project, I really hate to see it end like this. There is a bright side in that we can always learn something, even when the outcome is less than perfect. My take-away is... Recovery is the hardest part of rocketry. On a big project, redundant trackers are a good idea.

I'm really hoping somebody finds it!!

Good luck Matt!!!

I'm sorry to hear your rocket is MIA. Just remember, this happens to the best of us. Just yesterday I watched someone's L1 cert attempt slowly drift into a tree. It hangs there, about 60-70 feet high, taunting the owner. My stomach turns any time I see that happen. It happened to me on my L1 cert flight too. If this rocket doesn't return, have faith that your second try at L3 will go absolutely perfect!

sorry about loss , I've had lost ones turn up 6 months later keep the faith

was you tracking with phone ? , there is a text file that may help with flight path if so

michigander said:

sorry about loss , I've had lost ones turn up 6 months later keep the faith

was you tracking with phone ? , there is a text file that may help with flight path if so

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No, I was flying with an LCD Rx, which means I only get the current coordinates.

Hey Matt,

Sorry to hear your L3 bird is MIA. As some of the previous folks have suggested, consider extending your search area if you're still there. Winds aloft are often very different than at the surface. I have seen high altitude main deployments exiting the area faster than expected, resulting in losing visual contact.

While I know it's disappointing, the consolation prize for an unsuccessful L3 attempt is you get to do another. There's no penalty, other than the value of the lost hardware. Big rockets are not inexpensive, but the experience & lessons learned are priceless. My failed L3 attempt was sort of the opposite - no laundry deployed at apogee, and the main deployed at 800', during a ballistic return at 550 fps. The rocket was a total loss, except for a few components that survived the high velocity impact. After going through the normal stages of grief, I started planning the next one, applying lessons documented from the first.

Hold your head up, think about what you're learning, and don't be overly discouraged. High Power Rocketeers are a rare species. You're doing things that many other people cannot even imagine.

-Bill

To be honest, I'm pretty bummed, but not discouraged. Yeah, it's an expensive failure, but it's the risk of launching big rockets.

This was a MAJOR learning lesson for me.

I'll be doing an analysis in a bit to figure out any possible things that went wrong to add to my list of things to check for future launches.


Furthermore, to quote (I think it was Gus)... Level three was so much fun that I want to do it twice.


I'll give it a few months to see if it gets found, and also build up my wallet again. I mostly want to find it to A) return the stuff I borrowed and B) see if I can analyze the mode of failure.

Level III part 2 will come when I'm in Huntsville.

If you saw it with the main out....it's out there somewhere. I had one hang in a tree for three months before someone else found it and I was able to go out and cut it down.

Bummer... Yeah I failed my first L-3 too. Regroup, rebuild, and be glad you have an excuse for another big rocket flight.

Do a nosecone tracker and borrow an RDF rig for backup. You got the upside right. I've had stuff returned to me
after 18 months. Now I have extra motor hardware! Better the next try. You stuff a tracker with backup in there
and it's a very good chance it will come down in sight! Kurt

So, loss of GPS at the pad and main at apogee? As the builder, surely there was something your subconscious was nagging you about... Off the top of your head, what do you think most likely happened?

CORZERO said:

So, loss of GPS at the pad and main at apogee? As the builder, surely there was something your subconscious was nagging you about... Off the top of your head, what do you think most likely happened?

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I have a failure analysis thread where I'm looking at the possible causes of failure.

In hindsight, there were several places where my subconscious nagged at me but Go-Fever caught me.


Honestly, this was a major learning experience:

1. Weather Analysis
In the future, I will be adding a weather check to my checklist. I need to remember that just because the winds at the ground aren't that bad, that means NOTHING for the winds up higher. From numbers I have gotten from other people, the winds were approximately 50+ mph at apogee. This was a failure on my part that I should have noticed.

2. Redundant trackers
I should have asked to borrow a second tracker for the flight. With the amount of labor, time, and money I had in this rocket, a redundant tracker would have paid for itself.

3. Go Fever
I have a MAJOR problem with go fever. I had it in my head that I HAD to get this rocket up RIGHT NOW. I needed to remember that there are plenty of other launches in the future, and just because you don't launch it at LDRS isn't a problem. There's plenty of other launches in the future I could have gone to. I need to figure out some sort of way to keep myself from having go fever.

4. Gut feel
In hindsight, there were several things that I said "Oh, I don't need to do that, I've never had a problem with it". These problems include a) multiple ground tests (I normally run at least 2 but was rushing myself), b) a second eye to look over my setup in detail (although I had a checklist to analyze every part of the bay, a second set of eyes would have helped me catch any errors), c) taking my eyes off the rocket on descent (I thought to myself "oh that won't be a problem, I have GPS"). Taking my eyes off of the rocket was the reason I lost it.