Simulating parallel staging in a cluster (in OpenRocket).

[MattJL]

Silly thought, but one I had in the shower earlier today.

Is there any way to simulate parallel staging in a cluster? Specifically, I'm thinking of a situation where you'd have several very large motors strapped together in a cluster, and then only certain sets (in symmetrical pairs) would be ignited. So if you had a group of 7 motors, 4 would fire, then 2, and then 1. OR doesn't present any intuitive solutions to simming this.

It's, obviously, not as efficient as building one larger motor to a custom diameter, but I'd imagine it could be beneficial for very high-altitude flights where recovery starts becoming a problem.

 

[neil_w]

Hmm, I feel like this should be possible but it requires trickery. If I have time I'll fiddle.

The approach I would think is that you define the booster as nothing but a 0-length tube with cluster motor mount, and position it all so it coincides with the motor mount on the rocket. The only catch is that it'll assume the booster motors are ejected when the rocket stages, so it'll think the sustainer is a bit lighter than it would be IRL, where it's still carrying the spent booster motors with it. Can't think of any way around that unless you define custom motors for the booster. Not worth the trouble I don't think.

 

[boatgeek]

I <think> you can define several motor mounts. You can then set different firing times for each outboard motor. If you have a rocket with many outboard, I think it should be named "Evinrude."