hobbyspace reports that you guys did a 60-sec flight today?
Getting close to doing the LLC flights?
Has it landed on its own legs yet?
QuoteGetting close to doing the LLC flights?Closer. This particular vehicle is pretty marginal for a Level One flight. As-is, we might be able to get just over 90s of flight, but probably without the 55lb goldbox requirements. We think there's a good chance we can work our way up to Level 1 capabilities with this vehicle, but it'll take some time.
Quote from: jongoff on 06/04/2009 08:27 amQuoteGetting close to doing the LLC flights?Closer. This particular vehicle is pretty marginal for a Level One flight. As-is, we might be able to get just over 90s of flight, but probably without the 55lb goldbox requirements. We think there's a good chance we can work our way up to Level 1 capabilities with this vehicle, but it'll take some time. Im tempted to ask if bolting on elongated/taller tanks is an option for this vehicle, or its not that simple/worth the effort ?
It's great to follow this!I hope you can do something to the dust so we can better see the beautiful flights on the videos. When the control laws are there (and it looks like you're pretty close), the development of the next rocket to hovering status should be very quick. It seems the engines have always been a pretty trouble-free area for MSS.
Yeah, but its taken Armadillo years to gain any real altitude ... not critizising, just an obsevation. It looked like they were almost close to try for an original X-Prize, but so far they havent managed to fly above the birds.
What is Masten's long term idea of how to use your family of vehicles? Reusable sounding rockets, suborbital tourism, or orbital small sat deployment, or manned launch?
Is the current long term plan for Masten to keep building larger and stronger vehicles until you have one vehicle that goes all the way up, an inline "stack" of two or three of your vehicles, or a modular triangular design like Armadillo is proposing?
For suborbital applications we're still aiming for the first of those three options--a single stage, multi-engine design. Our original concept back in 04 when we first decided to start this was a 10klb GLOW vehicle called XA-1.0. It would've had 12 pump-fed engines (8 "verniers" and 4 "mains) that would haul 100kg to 100km. At this point about the only things that are still the same is the name and the nominal payload goal. Pending lessons learned from the next two or three subscale vehicles, it looks like XA-1.0 may very well end up being pressure fed, about half the size originally expected, and using 4 or 5 engines...~Jon
Jon, interesting. I always enjoy reading about your progress.
We (meaning humanity) have been doing rocket science for a full lifetime now. Clearly, you guys at Masten have learned a lot in these last few years, given how much you've changed your design. What is it about building rockets that is so unpredictable? Are there aspects of the science (or the art) that don't communicate well from team to team, so they have to be perpetually re-learned? Are there facts, or tools, or histories that, in retrospect, would have minimized the amount of tinkering you needed to do? Or is it just that your goals are so different from previous projects that you really were exploring a whole new subspace of rocketry?
Did that even remotely come close to answering your question?
This last page of responses have been REALLY interesting!
You said you've moved from pump fed engines to pressure fed...Do you eventually want to go back to pump fed or do you feel confident pressure fed won't limit you in the long run?
Also, how much fun is it doing rocket science? (I just finished my last year of college, so this is 'research' on my career as of 1 week from now)