MESOS Flight 3: 233,313 ft. (71 km) and Mach 4

[Kip_Daugirdas]

Figured I would post the latest flight information here too. There's a lot to this story including pitch-roll coupling which seriously killed the altitude on Flight 2 (94,000 ft). But all-in-all these flights are going well and I'm recovering the rocket in re-flyable condition everytime. That alone has seriously helped keep the cadence of flights up this year.

Flight 3 of MESOS on November 4th from FAR in Mojave, CA
Rocket reached an apogee of 233,313 ft. (71 km) and Mach 4!
Rocket Info….
Booster: 4.50” / 2nd Stage: 3.00” diameter
Weight: 87lbs at pad
Length: 12.3ft
Motors:
Experimental O4500 (32,943 N-s at Sea Level)
Experimental M830 (7,743 N-s at Sea Level)
Avionics:
2nd Stage : Multitronix Kate 3.0, Featherweight Blue Raven (data only)
Booster: 2x Featherweight Raven 4, Beeline GPS
Payload:
2x GoPro 9 with rectilinear lenses (one shooting 4K/60fps and the other photos)
Lens information: Backbone mod to both GoPros www.back-bone.ca 4.35mm 16MP Low Distortion M12
Photo credits: Thomas Booksa, Julian Rice, and Joe Barnard






Booster Recovery:

2nd Stage Recovery:

 

[Kip_Daugirdas]

Photo uploader is not great on this site. More pictures on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X.

 

[Jmhepworth]

More Red Bull next time. And “nice fish eye, bro.”

 

[neil_w]

Mighty impressive

 

[DAllen]

WOW

 

[tsmith1315]

Beyond impressive! You’re really setting a new standard, Kip.

 

[jkovac]

Awesome. Do you have the GoPro footage posted anywhere?

 

[NTP2]

Next time you will go over 100km for sure!

 

[Burner]

Very impressive Kip! Wish I could have made it out for the flight. Was there anything you did differently between flights two and three to address the pitch-roll coupling?

 

[DigBaddy]

I don't worship a deity; I worship Kip.

Amazing stuff!

 

[TheTank]

Amazing work. I can't think of any individual that has done more back to back super high altitude flights in this short a period of time. Your results are unbelievable. Keep it up!

 

[Kip_Daugirdas]

Very impressive Kip! Wish I could have made it out for the flight. Was there anything you did differently between flights two and three to address the pitch-roll coupling?

Thank you! I was hoping to see ya there!

I spent all of my “rocketry-time” this summer/fall trying to determine what caused the really bad pitch-roll in May and prepare for another flight. I definitely isolated some issues, improved on them, but ultimately did not eliminate it. The rocket was supposed to reach 260,000 ft but still underperformed by 10%. Still a huge improvement over May which was 94,000 ft.

If one looks back to the early development of small sounding rockets 50s/60s they often ran into similar problems regarding pitch-roll on initial flights. Difference is those rockets were mass produced and they had many more opportunities to isolate causes and make fixes.

I will say that I plan to retire the moon burner in the upper stage. But running a center core motor is also not going to happen on future flights.

 

[wsume99]

I will say that I plan to retire the moon burner in the upper stage. But running a center core motor is also not going to happen on future flights.

So an end burner then??

 

[jsdemar]

So an end burner then??

 

[Kip_Daugirdas]

So an end burner then??

Yes that is the plan. I think designing and building a high-performance end burner will be a massive challenge. But also incredibly fun and educational.

 

[NTP2]

I think designing and building a high-performance end burner will be a massive challenge. But also incredibly fun and educational.

That’s true of everything in this hobby to a point.

 

[jderimig]

Yes that is the plan. I think designing and building a high-performance end burner will be a massive challenge. But also incredibly fun and educational.

Try a screw-burner. (Moon burner in a helix). I plan to try and make one this winter/spring.

 

[Tractionengines]

AWESOME FLIGHTS YOU HAVE HAD. I just watched a number of your earlier videos, over, and over again...

Yes that is the plan. I think designing and building a high-performance end burner will be a massive challenge. But also incredibly fun and educational.

Just thinking out loud...What about a dual-grain design. partial center core in the 1st short area to light easier, and get it back up to speed, then the long sustain phase of the end-burner... the issue is nozzle size, and chamber pressure. Keep the cored area short enough to survive.