Army SPEAR Team shot.

[CTI]

Gary Rosenfield from Aerotech just sent this to me.

https://fb.watch/6cYqEYfSg6/

“From what I understand, the Army SPEAR team reached 84 km (275,520 feet) according to inertial data using commercial high power motors: An AeroTech O5280X DMS in the booster and a CTI M2245 in the sustainer. Actual altitude may have been well over 300,000 feet, reaching and exceeding the Karman line. As far as I know this is a record with commercial certified high power motors.”

That’s pretty slick.

Anthony J. Cesaroni
President/CEO
Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace
http://www.cesaronitech.com/
(941) 360-3100 x1004 Sarasota
(905) 887-2370 x222 Toronto

 

[Theory]

Very cool!

 

[FredA]

Nice, but not straight up - was that a launch requirement?

 

[MClark]

If the video on the linked page is the 84 km launch it is pretty far off vertical.

 

[cwbullet]

Good we are still pushing the envelope.

 

[Cameron Anderson]

Got this odd their Facebook.

That think looks MINIMAL! Bolt-on fin cans and I can't imagine any truly useful recovery gear in there, given the size.

 

[MClark]

You can go a lot higher if everything burns in

 

[jderimig]

Nice, but not straight up - was that a launch requirement?

If it was at WSMR they will allow ballistic return of the booster, maybe if that is opted for a launch angle may be required. I do not. John Demar would know.

 

[3stoogesrocketry]

If it was at WSMR they will allow ballistic return of the booster, maybe if that is opted for a launch angle may be required. I do not. John Demar would know.

Judging by the sever tip off the rail in the smoke trail , that was not intended.

 

[Chad]

man, given the acceleration, i can't believe it didn't buckle correcting that wobble off the pad. the picture of the airframe implies the minimalist of minimal build hah.

amazing stuff

 

[Joe Scuti]

Is there an openrocket file for this rocket?

 

[UhClem]

Princeton Spaceshot used the same motors a couple of years ago. I can't turn up a final report with an altitude though.

 

[plugger]

Here's a previous post with some links.

 

[DaHabes]

If the video on the linked page is the 84 km launch it is pretty far off vertical.

It's hard to tell because the videographer didn't do all that great a job, but that angle was at least 30 degrees off vertical. That translates to 317,000 feet if launched vertical (minimum).

 

[DaHabes]

Got this odd their Facebook.

That think looks MINIMAL! Bolt-on fin cans and I can't imagine any truly useful recovery gear in there, given the size.

It's easy to go high if you don't care about recovery......

 

[plugger]

It's easy to go high if you don't care about recovery......

They recovered the sustainer.

 

[mikec]

Princeton Spaceshot used the same motors a couple of years ago. I can't turn up a final report with an altitude though.

Which seems strange, given that they claimed that had exceeded the Karmen line on their Facebook page. But I didn't see a scrap of post-flight documentation on their website.

 

[AeroTech]

 

[FredA]

Interesting lack of fasteners on the fincan

 

[Theory]

Interesting lack of fasteners on the fincan

 

[FredA]

But what glue -- we need another epoxy thread, don't we????

 

[jsdemar]

This was a West Point cadet project. It would have gone higher if it hadn't tipped off the rail. Something around 4-5 degrees was required. No booster recovery, as planned. Ignition was likely done using my BKNO3-V... they bought a bunch of ProCast kits from Quickburst.

 

[jsdemar]

https://sites.google.com/view/cme-projects-day-2021/aero/spear-rocket

 

[saadzmirza]

This rocket was developed by Joseph Maydell at Space Launch Technologies and West Point SPEAR. The design was an evolution of Princeton SpaceShot, the design and technical details of which was shared with those groups/individuals. That rocket was chiefly designed by Coleman Merchant.

Their design was quite a bit heavier, but it was important to switch to metallic fin cans for the first stage because the fin cant angles were not precise enough with tip to tip composites. The Princeton 2019 flight had unplanned spin and roll resonance, limiting the total altitude to about 55 km by my guess, even though we hit about M6.2