A Story...

The news has been covering the Air France flight 447.
Like all modern aircraft crashes the crash was the result of many causal events chained together.

Its clear that the root cause is a failure of both pitot static systems. Probably caused by super cooled freezing rain. One could reasonable argue that the root cause was the failure to replace these sensors, as that particular model had a history of freezing rain problems.
I believe that the static ports clogged and the pitot ports remained open.


We pick up our story shortly before this happened.

The experienced captain has retired to the crew rest area leaving two more junior crew to watch the airplane. Its four hours into a very long flight, its dark and cloudy flying between layers one cant really see the sky or the surface of the ocean. The cruise flight is usually uneventful and almost fully automated. The airbus flies as high as it can given the fuel load, it seeks thin low drag air for maximum efficiency. The margin between the cruise speed and stall speed where the aircraft stops flying is thin. They fly as high as they can given their weight. Maybe as little margin as 15%. In this warm cocoon with dim cockpit lights one struggles to stay alert.
Its hard to stay alert your human clock has no idea what time its it's dark, quiet peaceful.
Little has prepared you to be sharp and focused, you are about to loose the fight for your life.

The plane flies though a mist of super cooled water. This immediately makes a smooth solid sheet over the airframe. The various heaters and bleed air system make short work or removing this ice from most of the important surfaces.

The Pitot static system has two ports. One is used to measure the ambient "static" pressure. The other port is used to measure the pitot or impact pressure.
The absolute pressure on the static port is used to measure altitude.
the difference in pressure between the pitot and static pressures measures the indicated airspeed. IE dynamic air pressure. At these altitudes the airspeed might read 150mph even though the airplane is going 600mph. The air is thin here so the impact/airspeed pressure is
not adjusted for density as its real use is to tell what aerodynamic conditions the airplane sees, not the real speed over ground.

The static port heaters aren't quite up to the job. They seal shut under this icy glaze.
Since the system is basically flying in equilibrium there is no sudden change. After some time,
maybe quickly, maybe many tens of minutes the computer system on the aircraft determines that it can't tell what speed or altitude its flying at. The autopilot is officially confused. So it does what its supposed to do when confused, it shuts itself off and tells the pilots I have no clue you figure it out. The junior pilot is awakened from his day dreams with an alarm the basically says you've got it. So he is now been jarred into action to fight some flaw or failure of unknown origin and type. He can't really see outside he is now hand flying the airplane focused on the instruments. Maybe he sees the airspeed is a little bit high, so the natural reaction is to pull the nose up and slow down. When he pulls up the airspeed slows down as it should, as the plane climbs the pitot pressure decreases and the indicated airspeed slows down. So his first reaction seems to be correct, nose comes up speed slows down. Its kind of strange the altitude did not change. No he's confused. But his brain says nose up slow down it worked. Airspeed is ok.
Back to messing with the computers to see what error code caused this problem.
Yet maybe he keeps applying a little back pressure the plane climbs and slows down to the point it stalls. Now he has multiple different alarms, stall warnings, computer alarms and confused autopilot he must choose what problem to address. Scared and confused he goes back to basics, fly the dammed plane. At this time the aircraft is stalled and descending rapidly in the dark clouds. The outside air pressure is increasing so the pitot pressures is increasing showing a rising airspeed. Yet in the real world the airplane is slow REALLLY slow, falling from the sky.
Yet the pilot saw the airspeed respond to his first inputs when he took control, that must be working. soon the airspeed is really climbing, maybe even approaching redline as the pressure increases. The Altimeter shows lots of altitude, the view out the window is dark confusing and useless. The more the pilot tries to pull up to slow down the airplane the faster the airspeed shows.... he now fears that he's going to rip the wings off..... His brain screams your screwing up something is wrong, yet noting seems to behave correctly, trying to just do the basics and its not right. Its not clear that the pilot ever figured out what was wrong before the plane smacked the water killing everyone on board.



When I was a 100 to 150 hour pilot in Alaska I almost had the identical crash.
My college girlfriend had come up to visit at the end of the summer and I wanted to take her flying to show her where I grew up. The airplane I was used to flying, a super cub on floats, was down for maintenance. So we were flying my Dads Turbo 206. It was completly tricked out with all the slow speed stol slats, big engine amphibian floats (not regular floats like the cub)
I Probably had 6 to 10 hours in the 206. It was a bit much for me. We were going from Ketchikan to Craig Alaska, typical Alaskan day raining dreary 1500 ft ove cast. Getting through the pass across prince of wales island was tight but not unusually so. Getting near Craig there was patchy fog around and the water was glassy. Glassy water landings are a challenge in a sea plane because you can't judge height over a mirror surface. So to land you set up an attitude and rate of descent and just hold it till you hit the water. I set up fro a straight in landing heading directly at Craig, I'm all configured, wheels up, flaps down, cowl flaps, etc... I check the gear twice. All the check list things are done, but the plane is not flying right. The airspeed is way high and I just can't get it to slow down. I'm trying to hit the target glassy water speed to set the right approach angle. Its not working the nose is way up, the airspeed is climbing. With all the STOL gear on this plane the stall is mushy not sharp so I don't notice a buffet or stall break.
I'm fully stalled and descending to the water at a high rate of speed. My brain is screaming something is wrong fix it. I can't figure it out something is obviously wrong. If it had been the super cub I had a lot of experience in I would have realized what was wrong by the feel of the airplane. I did not have enough time in the 206 to realize this. I eventually realized that I was in trouble and decided to abort the landing, full power (this was the souped up plane so full power would climb at a 45 degree angle) Stop thinking about landing start thinking about going around.
I started looking outside exclusively as I did not want to fly into the town of Craig, I needed to go around. When I stopped focusing on the airspeed and started flying the airplane I lowered the nose. At that moment we hit the water. I'd just powered my way out of a stall into minimum controllable airspeed by pure power. We hit firmly but not hard enough to break anything.
(remember this is glassy water so there is no height clue) I immediately pulled the throttle back and we were bobbing on the water, not moving at all. I looked down and the airspeed said 130 knots. I reached down and flipped the alternate static port valve and altimeter and airspeed suddenly read the correct values.


Here I was flying by visual flight rules in a simple non automated airplane in the day time while being on high alert due to the newness of flying this plane and a frozen static port almost killed me. I can close my eyes and imagine the terror as the pilot struggled to figure out what was wrong, his brain screaming your screwing up something is wrong fix it, and being unable to figure it out. I've been there it was not fun. Its been 29 years since that flight and retellign the story still makes me feel terrified.



A side note on multiple causes:
With the STOL gear the plane stalls 10 or 15 mph slower than the factory stock version. The bush pilots that flew that plane on a regular basis found the continuous stall warning horn on approach annoying so they put a chunk of tree branch in the stall warning vane so it would not go off. If I'd heard a stall warning I might have figured it out sooner...the cub I usually flew did not have or need such things.

FAR weekend and progress....

My goals for my FAR weekend were :

1. Deliver the tank mold I spent the last week making to continue the Joint peroxide tank development.
2. Fly my autonomous helicopter again in preperation for my GPS IMU integration project.
3. Strech goal use the helicopter to film a launch from above.
4. Test my printed motor for the Third time to qualify the cat pack.
5. Be a spectator and watch three really cool projects.

I drove out to FAR on Friday night. I got started a bit late and got stuck in Firday afternoon leaving town traffic. Some where near Adelnot I must of run over someones knife.
As I ended up with a flat tire. From the outside it looked like a bent over nail, or staple. Today when I had the tire fixed it turns out to be a knife blade(Inside the tire view.). The tire is a loss. I had hoped to get to FAR before dark to start setting up. Alas with traffic and the tire I got to FAR really late. It took 7 hours from my house to the site. (Normally takes 4) The site was really busy with lots going on.

I accomplished part of my list. I set up half the test stand Friday night before I went to bed, but Saturday had so many people working on som many projects I never got a break between projects to finish and fire. By 3PM I was worn out from the heat, and still needed to resolve getting my tire fixed, so I tore it back down and I'll do the fireing on the next FAR day Jun 3rd.

All the projects were fun to watch, alas I think only the sugar shot guys had a successful recovery. The two stage attempt had a wild disassembly followed by the 2nd stage firing straight down. The biggest coolest project was part of a TV program so I'm not sure they would want me to discuss the outcome.

I fired up the helicopter and the software and sensors still work,I successfully made some minor changes to the flight software and that worked. Alas a loose tail rotor prevented any attempt at getting the launch shot.

I delivered the tank mold form so I should see the first testable peroxide compatible tank in the next month.

Saturday Testing...

On Saturday we got up and left for FAR at 6am. We stopped for a sit down breakfast at 8 am.
We got to FAR at 10:15 We missed the Garvey space launch by 20min. Breakfast so was not worth it.

Historically every liquid test/launch conductor says they will go at 9 am and inevitably it happens around 12 or 1. This was a relaunch of the vehicle they flew two weeks ago and everything went according to plan. It jsut means I'll have to get up earlier next time I go to FAR.

For our test we broke off the fuel feed fitting, probably from all the handling in the last two weeks. We have stopped bringing the kitchen sink with us so we had no spare. A 1.5 hour drive into California city and back nets us a usable fitting and a lunch in air conditioning.

We were very careful in loading propellants to get proper wieghts for the oxidizer and fuel going in and leftover fuel coming out after the test. This should allow me to calculate a good ISP number combined with the load cell data.

The test ran for several minutes and from my perspective was perfect. The motor had a bit more hum than last time, I suspect the cat pack might be getting loose from being compressed, and cooled, but it operated perfectly.

Another test on the May 7th (the next FAR day) and I'll declare the cat pack issue resolved and start working on motor tuning for max ISP.

Totally off topic post

I was having a debate on another blog about the hydrogen economy.
I created this post so the debate could move over here and not clutter up someone else's blog.

for rocket news we will be testing the printed SS motor this weekend, and we will be presenting at space access.

Also good luck to team armadillo and the tube rocket.

Plans Modified....

My Son had work to do this weekend and could not go to FAR.

I chose to cancel rocket testing this weekend and work on my GPS project.
I got the Rakon GMM8652 based front end working.
So now that I have a fully working front end the real work starts.

I'm currently routing the raw data into an FPGA , but instead of doing the processing there I'm just using that as a path to record the data. Recording raw data records (4M bytes/sec) and post processing with the FASTGPS open source software GPS program on a PC.

Next Step do the corelator processing in the FPGA. I have that verilog code written, but its mostly untested at this point.
Rough order of events:

1. Prove the RF and FPGA hardware works. (done)
2. Get one correlation channel tracking one sat.
3. Get 6 or more channels tracking sats.
4. Calculate position, velocity, time (PVT) based on this tracking data.
5. Add data delay buffer and feedback from IMU data to aid loop tracking.
6. Fly the thing.
   

I will probably take a detour that that records raw IMU and GPS data on some flash memory,
and fly that so we have a good raw data set to use for testing and simulation.

Past...Present..Future...Plans (updated)

Past:
On March 5th we watched Garvey space have a perfect flight.
We tested a commercial GPS and out stainless printed motor.

The Motor had cat pack issues,
The peroxide has to flow through the cat pack and not around it.
This is done by adding rings that look like piston rings and expand out against the barrel of the cat pack area and block flow that wants to go around the outside. I disassembled the pack tonight and I had 4 anti channeling rings in the pack. The top ring was fine, the second ring was a bit distorted, the 3rd was badly burnt and thinned and the last one came out in tiny bits. I'm going to try stainless C clips as anti channeling baffles and we will see how that goes.


The GPS stopped updating the moment the motor lit.


Present:
I'm going to use some tougher stainless snap rings as anti channeling baffles.

Today I received my 2nd version of a GPS front end board and hopefully will get to try it this weekend. (rakon grm8652 integrated GPS front end )

The Max2769 eval board is due in on Friday if UPS is to be believed.


Future:
This Saturday we will try firing the small stainless printed motor with modified anti channeling baffles in the cat pack.

Some time in April we might get our first test tank under the Tank development process with we are doing jointly with microcosm.

I have high hopes to have a high dynamics GPS to actually fly by the next FAR outing the first Saturday in April.


My current Plan of record:

1)Work on the small 3D printed motors both stainless and aluminum until I have a viable 3rd stage motor.

2)In parallel work on high dynamics GPS and IMU integration using HPR rockets to test,

3)Tank development continues. (my involvement with this is limited until testing is needed)


4)When I have the high dynamic gps/imu working add some small canard control fins to the
HPR test rocket and see if we can control the trajectory.
This may possibly be done with vanes in the exhaust instead of canard fins.


5)Combine steps 1-4 to see if we can fly a small rocket to 100Km.

GPS progress....

I built a GPS front end using a MAX2769... alas it does not work and I do not know why. I have it connected to an FPGA (PK70 FPGA blade board) . I spent all day Saturday and Sunday trying to find sats in the data record. So this evening after work I took a working GPS, An old Novatel Superstar II, and wired on some jumpers between the front end and the correlator. When I record that data stream and change my constants for a different Fsample and Fcenter I get Sats! I can ! even compute a positionSo all my basic hardware chain is working, just not the front end that is an exact implementation of a commercial IC reference design. Not the part of the design I expected to be bad. Progress.... now to decide if I want to just shell out 2K for a small
Non COCOM GPS that can do what I want or if I should spend a month or so finishing what I started, and have something to offer the community.

Saturday Testing...

We went out to FAR on Saturday. It was a normal Saturday at FAR.

• UCLA was fireing a 2Klb Nitrous Hybrid Motor.of their own design. They had a good firing and learned a lot.
• There were several EX solid flights including an M.
• An experimental Steam Hybrid Motor.
• The site next door, RRS fired a large 10K lb (my guess) biprop liquid for a 10 seconds or so a good rumble.
• We fired our small Gasoline/H2O2 regen 3D printed DMLS stainless motor.

We had a good firing, basic results:

• Our Cat pack issue is resolved, it started right up and ran perfectly. It looks like lots of anti channel rings are really important.
  
• The motor is running a bit lean as the flame was completely transparent.
• We ran for about 60 seconds so we reached thermal equilibrium.
• We are completely paranoid about material compatibility on the H2O2 side of the test stand. It appears we need to be more paranoid about the fuel side as the gasoline ate the seals out of one of our fuel valves.
• I'll try to publish data this week.
• We should also have access to video later this week.

Unreasonable is basically testing with a two person team. This makes it really hard to take proper pictures and video of the testing. On Saturday there were some guys from a couple of LA hacker spaces (crash space and null space) that came out to FAR and were filming everything. They took a bunch of pictures and videoed the test. When they post these we will post a link here. So... if anyone wants to comne otu to the site and take pictures you are always welcome. We expect to be testing on the first and third Saturday of every month for the foreseeable future.

An open message for Blue Origin.

Blue Origin is Mr Bezos's company and he can run it any way he wants. If he is running it to create a profitable business with maximum advantage for B.O. then the rest of my message has no applicability.

If on the other hand if Mr Bezos has a passion for space and making the human race spacefaring then B.O.'s actions are destructive. Most of the "new space" companies are somewhat open from Space X down to the smallest garage operation. Other companies participate in conferences, they publish their success, the publish their failures, and all involved learn. B.O does none of this. They have access to everyone's information and yet share none.

In addition B.O has started filing patents that restrict the trade space. Today's news of the barge landing patent is a perfect example. Other new space people have publicly talked about barge landing of various vehicles to recover stages. I remember John Carmack talking about barge landing more than 4 years ago. Others have commented to me personally that they have written notes talking about barge landing from more than 5 years ago.

There is a huge on-line discussion base about lower cost space flight and it clearly covers this and other B.O patents. If the patent is challenged the patent will be clearly invalid, but if it is issued it will cost millions to have it declared invalid. This is a huge expense to any small organization that might want to use that technology.

So if Mr Bezos's intent is to help get the human race off of the planet, please don't be evil, try being more open.

Addendum:
I am not anti patent, but the patent needs to actually be innovative.

Vacuuming up common sense, not adding anything new, and attempting to patent that, is destructive. This is just a make work patent for patent attorneys. No real new ideas, and if you want to use one of the concepts covered in the claims one will now have to go back and find reference to the prior art, document it, and budget funds to have a lawyer defend your position.
I won't go line by line to refute the claims, that has already been done in several forums by myself and others.

If the patent actually had some new art, say:

• A unique way to adjust trajectory to compensate for performance changes and still land on the barge.
• A cool stabilization and retention system that would capture the rocket on a rolling barge and stabilize it.
• An innovative method to incorporate a flame trench or blast diffusion system on a barge.
• Anything that someone "Skilled" in the art would not find obvious to the extreme.

Then you would not hear a peep from me about it.

Day at FAR...

Thursday we had a delivery of new clean propellant. So we got up at 5am and drove to FAR.
We waited three hours for the delivery truck who thought the road was still to rough so we met him at the end of the pavement and took the delivery the rest of the way in our truck.

We then set up the test stand and fired the stainless DMLS motor. It was much better than last time, but we still have catalyst issues as we were not getting full decomposition. The beginning and end of the very long run were identical so we are no longer poisoning our cat packs.!!
I think I need to add some anti channel baffles.

The test stand worked flawlessly and set up to fire time was less than 45 minutes with just two of us.

After we finished that I went back and made another attempt on the generator:

I replaced ALL the banjo fitting seals and soft feed tubing. After doing that the prime pump was much more solid and priming was faster and seemed less random. The Motor still did not run.

Then I removed the side panel (Item D in the picture from two posts ago) and tried to figure out what moved when your moved the shutoff lever..... nothing moved.....

Then I removed the fittings and bolts holding block Item 9, from the top of the injection pump.
I discovered that the pump pistons have a little cam arm that comes out and engages a rod that should be moving. One of the injector pistons is stuck in the full up position and will not turn as it should. This jams the rod keeping all of the injector piston cams stuck in the shutoff position.
I freed that piston and reassembled everything.

Now when you move the shutoff lever you could see moment inside the area exposed by cover Item D. When the motor was turned over the outlets made little sequential squirts.!!!!

After fully reassembling everything the Generator started on the second attempt.
We then cleaned up the oily mess inside the generator enclosure from all the bleeding.
We buttoned up all the covers and ran it one more time. We now have a generator!!!!

Many thanks to Dave Weinshenker for the diesel help. He deduced what the problem was and provided me the information I needed to resolve the issue.


I should have data and possibly video of the rocket motor test in the next week some time.
I won't have much time this weekend as my Dad fell down and is in the hospital (Nothing major, he should be out Today) We also have a 99th birthday celebration for my Step Mom's mother this weekend.

A Plan for tanks.

The rocket equation has two parts structural efficiency and motor performance. Since the beginning of our project we have spent considerable effort thinking about structural efficency.

Clearly modern composite structures hold real promise for improving structural efficiency. I've dabbled in composite structures but I am very much a beginner. The tanks produced by professionals like Scorpius Launch Systems/Microcosm are both amazingly functional and beautiful. It would take me a decade to acquire that level of expertise. The recent composite coupons I tested for peroxide compatibility were fabricated by Microcosm/Scorpius. I'm currently riding home from a meeting at their facility where we finished the details of a joint development program to build peroxide compatible liner less tanks.

I think this is a win win for both parties Scorpius will get a new product line and we will gain access to world class tanks.

Diesel frustration...

I spent the day at FAR trying to get the diesel motor running.
I sent the following note and picture to the vendor I bough the generator from. Any ideas from the peanut gallery? I realize the text is kind of rough, but it is part of an ongoing conversation....



I've attached a picture with parts labeled.
I still don't have it running, so I'll explain.

Today:
First thing I did was fix the return plumbing on top of the injectors.
I did not end up replacing the injectors as when I got the new bolts it all sealed up.
The return line that goes from the right end of the injector string down to the filter was rubber and leaking so I replaced it with the new metal part
I got from you guys.

Between each step below I'm loosening the screws #B and pumping the little pump until I get clear fuel with no bubbles.
I'm treating screw B like one treats a brake bleed, you need to close it while clear fluid is coming out so it does not suck in air.

So after fixing that and priming and bleeding I try to run... nothing.

The I remove the left most injector line nut #A (shown removed in the picture)
when I crank no fuel comes out the empty fitting, nothing not even a drop.

Then I remove all four nuts, and nothing not even a drop from ANY of them.

I open cover #3 and lift up the plate and turn the motor over to make sure gear inside is turning. It is.

So one of the guys says diesel pumps have shear pins and that could be it.

So I remove panel #D and turn over the motor, you can see the plungers moving up and down so the shear pin is probably good.


At this point I text you.
So for the next step I remove the screws #2 and then unscrew the left most two fittings #1 and the one to the left of it.
Inside are little plungers and springs, the plungers may have been stuck but the are now free.

Then I reinstall the springs and plungers and turn the motor over (after bleeding) and noting comes out.

So I remove #1 again and manually operate the prime pump and fuel comes out.

If I only screw #1 in part way the prime pump can make fuel come out. IF I screw it in all the way the prime pump can't
make fuel come out. If I only put number 1 into the point that the prime pump can make fuel come out and crank the motor No fuel comes out.


A couple of comments
The Hose #10 is really stiff and too big for the nipple, I really can't keep it from leaking air.
All of the banjo fittings on the inlet side of the world seem to have non metalic seals that are dried out and leak.
These were some of the seals I asked you for, but I've removed #10 and the banjo fitting behind it and all the fittings going to the first fuel filter,
I've brought these home and I'm going to get new seals and new hose before I go back out.


Some questions:

So at this point I'm lost? The only thing I see that could be wrong is that the inlet check valve into the plunger pump assembly is stuck open?
At this point is seems like I'm down to a fairly simple concept" plunger pump and two check valves.
Where will I find the inlet check valves to unjam?
Can I remove the whole upper pump assembly #9, if so do I just remove the 4 nuts, or do I have to do something else?


#J is fixed and I'm guessing it should not be adjusted?

#H moves all the way counter clockwise when you try to start, I'm guessing that that is the ONLY shutoff the electronics has for the motor?

#C What is this and does it do anything?

It takes be 4 to 4 1/2 hours each way to go the the site.
I've now been to the site 4 times to work on the generator. not counting time on the phone at home or asking researching at home
I've spent close to 50 hours working on this what should I do next?

Did you guys actually run this motor at your office? (based on the way it was packed I'd guess no.)

So realize this motor has NEVER EVER EVER run, so what else could be wrong?

PET third stage COTS tank

.


Before:


During


After




Betterbottle makes 5 and 6 gal PET water bottles. I could only find a source for the 5 Gal, so that is what I tested.

Empty 674 gm
MR with water of 29 with peroxide 39!
Burst at 125 PSI.
Long period of plastic deformation at around 100 psi
It burst in the thin center with the ends remaining substantially thicker.
This means one could probably prevent the banana deformation and increase the pressure with a center overwrap.

Way out of the box presure system...

Another out there concept... this won't work with the muiulti segment tank of the last wild idea, but will work for a single tank.

In a H2O2 rocket 80% of the propellant volume is H2O2, so you need to pay more attention to the H2O2 side than the fuel side.

Leave a small space at the top of the H2O2 tank. In this space put a solid silver screen/catalyst hung from a thermally compatible string. Unwind the string into the tank letting the silver decompose the H2O2 pressurizing the tank, raise and lower the catalyst to control pressure.

Fuel is pressurized with a bladder from the gas in the main oxidizer tank.

Main propellant valve is a simple burst disk.

Way out of the box...

A 3rd stage made of 3L soda bottles surrounding a 3U Cube sat.
3L soda bottles are good to 100PSI with a Mass ratio of > 40 when used with H2O2.

The "goodness" of normal rocket tanks are usually rated by the PV/mass. The best aerospace composite tanks, like the Scorpius pressurization tanks used by Armadillo in the 180sec super mod can have mass ratios of better than 9 at 2200 PSI working pressure. If you could scale this to a 200 PSI tank then you get a water filled tank mass ratio of >80. The fundamental problem is for the small sizes we are talking about you can never get that low. The tank wall would be paper thin. At small sizes the issues are minimum gage not minimum strength. (Hard to beat a soda bottle 0.25mm thick. )

As soon as you go up in size bigger than minimalist nano sat launcher then properly built aerospace quality tanks are a must.

I also suspect that when fighting minimum gage issues going up in pressure for a tiny launcher can have benefits in motors size, expansion ratio, flow path sizes etc....
A big puzzle with too many knobs.

UPDATE:
Here is a link to the specs for high quality aerospace tanks...

A salute to the Military etc...

For my U.S. followers remember the Americans that voluntarily offer to pay the ultimate price in defense of this nation. Reguardless of how you view the current conflicts, you can not help but be humbled by the voluntary sacrifce these men and women give in our name.

Give them something, I contribute every year to http://www.lbeh.org/

List of significant parts....

In trying to determine the scope of a Nano sat launcher project I generated the following list or physical hardware. There is an equivalent scope of work for Ground support, Software, Logistics, Regulatory issues etc...

1. Nose cone/aero shell
1. Aero shell separation system
2. Nano sat mount
1. Nano Sat ejection system.

3. Avionics:
1. GPS/ MEMS IMU Integrated system
2. Avionics control
3. Telemetry system
4. Battery System

4. Third Stage
1. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
2. Valves and Actuators
3. Pressurization System
4. Motor
5. Motor Thrust transfer structure
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Separation mechanism
8. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.
9. Roll Control TVC

5. Second Stage
1. Third Stage Support Structure
2. Battery for second stage actuators.
3. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
4. Valves and Actuators
5. Pressurization System
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Motor
8. Motor Thrust transfer structure
9. Separation mechanism
10. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.

6. First Stage
1. 2nd Stage Support Structure
2. Battery for first stage actuators.
3. Tanks (assuming tanks are the structure)
4. Valves and Actuators
5. Pressurization System
6. TVC Actuators.
7. Motor
8. Motor Thrust transfer structure
9. Fill and Drain Umbilical system.
10. Launch Hold down mechanism

Spacex....

Congratulations to spacex.
The scope and scale of what Elon and his troops have accomplished is just breathtaking.
I am in stunned awe.

I raise a toast to a most unreasonable man!

Testing results... sort of...

We went out to FAR setup the teststand, and the little stainless motor.
The temperature was really cold (45 F) and the cat pack never warmed up. By the time it would have been warm, it was dead, due to contaminated peroxide.

I disassembled the cat pack and dropped the screens in the peroxide dregs from the Jug we loaded from and there was almost no activity.

I then got a jug from a different batch and tried that, no activity.

So I cleaned the screens in 68% nitric acid. I then tried them in both batches of peroxide. Batch #1 killed the screen almost instantly.Batch #2 was reactive, so I let a screen soak in batch #2 after 2 or three minutes the screen was no longer reactive. The only conclusion is that both batches of peroxide were contaminated, batch #2 less so.

As a Final test I took a fresh clean screen and the screen that sat in batch 2 and put both in my beaker of peroxide, there was a big difference in reactivity, something is definitely contaminated. My Peroxide supplier thinks it was phosphate and has redone his proces to remove phosphate.

The end result is that engine tests will have to wait till I can get new peroxide or get my spargeing plant up and running and make my own propellant. The current tall pole in that process is diesel generator problems/waiting for parts.

In the mean time I'm going to work on tank development and some guidance and control electronics.

Some thoughts on an orbital launcher.
Assumptions:

• All stages contribute the same DV (Bad assumption)
• 9500 M/Sec Delta V may not be enough for a really small vehicle.
  
• MR is achieved MR per stage including payload.
• We assume the MR is the same for each stage (again a bad assumption)
  

This table shows you the minimum ISP performance you need given an achieved MR and a number of stages. For Reference the Blue Ball with no payload and no legs had a MR of between 5 and 6. If my notes are correct the Falcon 1 first stage with no Payload and no 2nd stage has a MR of about 16.

MR is down the left side, number of stages is across the top.

	Minimum ISP
Stages	4	3	2	1
MR
2	349.3	465.7	698.6	1397.1
3	220.4	293.8	440.7	881.5
4	174.6	232.9	349.3	698.6
5	150.4	200.6	300.9	601.7
6	135.1	180.2	270.2	540.5
7	124.4	165.9	248.8	497.7
8	116.4	155.2	232.9	465.7
9	110.2	146.9	220.4	440.7
10	105.1	140.2	210.3	420.6
11	101.0	134.6	201.9	403.9
12	97.4	129.9	194.9	389.7
13	94.4	125.9	188.8	377.6
14	91.7	122.3	183.5	366.9
15	89.4	119.2	178.8	357.6
16	87.3	116.4	174.6	349.3
17	85.5	113.9	170.9	341.8
18	83.8	111.7	167.5	335.0
19	82.2	109.6	164.4	328.9
20	80.8	107.8	161.6	323.3
40	65.6	87.5	131.3	262.5

The second chart shows the vehicle gross lift off weight given a 1Kg payload and assuming that the empty stages weigh the same as the payload they are lifting.

		GLOW multiplier
	4	3	2	1
2	256	64	16	4
3	1,296	216	36	6
4	4,096	512	64	8
5	10,000	1,000	100	10
6	20,736	1,728	144	12
7	38,416	2,744	196	14
8	65,536	4,096	256	16
9	104,976	5,832	324	18
10	160,000	8,000	400	20
11	234,256	10,648	484	22
12	331,776	13,824	576	24
13	456,976	17,576	676	26
14	614,656	21,952	784	28
15	810,000	27,000	900	30
16	1,048,576	32,768	1,024	32
17	1,336,336	39,304	1,156	34
18	1,679,616	46,656	1,296	36
19	2,085,136	54,872	1,444	38
20	2,560,000	64,000	1,600	40
40	40,960,000	512,000	6,400	80

The two bold numbers are about where I think my notional vehicle will land on this chart. This was a 1Kg nanosat with 1Kg of support structure would have a gross liftoff mass of ~2200 lbs, and the engine performance is a relatively easy ISP of 232 (Easy in vacuume, a bit harder on the first stage) Total Vehicle empty wt would be between 500 and 600 lbs.

you can do some really gross things... like a monoprop 4 stage launcher... MR 6 Glow for 1Kg payload is 40000 lbs.

My weekend ......Frustrating

We went out to FAR and set up the test stand.
Everything checked out we put in the fuel (gasoline) and
were preparing to load peroxide. When we opened the cap
there was a black substance stuck to the cap, when we open more fittings
there was an unknown black substance. The tank had been a peroxide tank.
It sat in the garage sealed for 2 years. On Friday we hydroed the tank and say no sign of contamination. The rough drive out to FAR dislodged some kind of black/brown powder from the inside of the tank. The powered looks like Iron rust on close inspection and is very reactive with peroxide. So the test was scrapped. It makes me wonder if something is leaching out of the aluminum after being stored for a long period.

We need to add interior visual inspection to the check list for all stored tanks, even if properly sealed and stored.

We worked on the big generator, burning the stale diesel and replacing with fresh. (Still not running)

On the plus side we did get our primary storage container cleaned up.
(As a result the garage at home is in distress once again)

We tested some of the super chemical compatible K190 resin for peroxide compatibility. It responded almost identically to the easier to get Vipel F010. A slight etching of the surface.

We'll see if we can fabricate a new test stand tank this week, and try again next weekend.

My Weekend....

I just finished hydroing the test stand and setting the pressure relief valve.
I have to hook up two pressure transducers to the electronics and the Stainless motor is ready to test. We will probably go out to FAR sometime Saturday and test the motor, work on our generator, and clean out our container. The clean out the container part probably means we will be out there overnight Saturday night and return some time Sunday.

Ways to save the world... and more Rockets

Saving the World
Any long time blog reader reader has already heard my rant about the only way to really spread an American standard of living to the entire population of the world requires that we find new resources, not just recycle our soda cans. I believe that off planet resources will be a significant part of the solution for things like rare earth metals, platinum group metals, expanding humans into the solar system etc.... The other half of this is a cost effective green energy source. I'm still very skeptical about the ability of space based solar power to solve the energy issues here on earth. I think its much more likely that small modular fisssion reactors and hopefully fusion will solve the energy problems.

A few weeks ago I posted about LPP. since that time I have visited their facility. I went through the lab and got to watch several "fusion" shots. They have multiple different ways to detect neutrons and are clearly generating neutrons via D-D fusion. They have obviously spent a fair bit in building their lab, but none of it was wasted in any way. They have good instrumentation and a well setup shielded room, but the rest of the lab space itself could be generously described as spartan. Its obvious that the people working on the project are passionate about what they are doing and believe they have a pretty good shot at making it all work. As a result I've decided to personally invest some $ in their business. If you are an accredited investor give them a call.

Back to Rockets....
I've started in earnest to work on a plan for winning the Nano Sat contest. There was a big meeting to kickoff the contest last week and in my mind the only significant questions left about the contest will be

• How do they resolve the no government funding rule,
• Who will be the allied organization.

The overall goal of centennial challenges is to encourage innovation from individuals and companies that are not part of the traditional aerospace environment. The goal of the specific Nanosat prize is to try and kick start a low cost nanosat launcher. At some level the two goals are in conflict. There are many small SBIR sized companies that have received government funding to work in this area, and so excluding government contractors from the contest will limit the pool of people that might succeed, at the same time including people receiving significant government funding really violates the spirit of the centennial challenges.
Personally I would like to see the same no government $ rules that were part of every previous centennial challenge.


On the technical and regulatory side of the house many many questions remain.

This weekend I hope to finally fire my stainless printed motor.
Building more real hardware really requires that I get more details of my notional launcher nailed down.

A personal non rocket tale and warning.

This has NOTHING to do with rockets but I think its important.
For the last two plus years I've felt tired and somewhat depressed.
I just thought I was getting older and though it was normal to feel drained all the time.
Last year while I was driving toward the LLC I was not getting a lot of sleep, largely by choice.

After the LLC I was looking forward to getting my energy back but no matter how much sleep I got, I woke up feeling trashed. I could barely work past 9pm without becoming dangerous and/or unproductive.

A month or so ago My wife went up to Long Beach for 4 days.
On Sunday I slept by myself and Monday I felt terrible. On Monday I drove up to Long Beach and spent the night with her, Tuesday I felt fine. Tuesday night I was home alone and Wednesday I felt terrible. Wednesday night she came home and Thursday I was ok.
I pointed this out to her and she said "when you roll over on your back you snore and I elbow you to make you roll over."

A light goes on My 80 yr old father has Sleep Apnea so I call my Dr and explain the A-B-A-B experiment I had just done. He says he will schedule me for a home sleep study..... 10 days later its tied up in the insurance authorization never never land so I buy myself a recording pulse oximeter and record a nights sleep. I find that my O2 sat goes to less than 80% more than 20 times in a 6 hour recording.

Armed with my data I say dam the insurance and full speed ahead. So I go in and see a sleep doctor that schedules a formal sleep study. The result is that I was having 33+ apneas an hour,
and not just while I was on my back.

When this happens your body senses that something is wrong and sets off all the panic alarms and wakes you up. As a result anytime I got into REM sleep it was short lived and unproductive.
You also get to activate your fight or flight alarm hormones every night. It also explains why I would wake up a 3 am feeling exhausted yet unable to go back to sleep. My body was in panic alarm mode. I was inadvertently running the REM sleep deprivation experiment.

I got a CPAP machine on Wednesday this week. Its only been two days, but I feel 1000% better. I wake up feeling rested, I worked late in the shop last night and got a lot done.

I'm writing this so anyone that snores and is feeling tired will seriously consider getting a sleep study. I did not look forward to sleeping with the Mask and hose etc.. but the change in how

I feel has been so dramatic that I would do it in an instant even if it meant wearing the mask 24/7. So if any of you are feeling tired and run down, not yourself depressed think about a sleep study.

I realize that something once written is on the Internet forever and that this revelation
might cause me some grief in the future while looking for jobs, contracts etc.... but if just one person reads this and it prods them to get checked out it will be well worth it.

As a side note I hope this will mean a lot more progress on the rocket projects!

Weekend update...

The stainless motor and test stand are almost ready to test.
Waiting for some more silver screen to arrive so I can make small cat packs rather than wastefully cut up 6" packs.

I worked on putting some more storage and shelving into the garage.
(My son finally gave up on the fantasy that one might someday park a car in there)

Sunday I went out to FAR and worked on getting generator set up for Propellant processing facility. I've never had a gas motor beat me, alas the universe is telling be I'm not a diesel mechanic. Will try again next time on site.

I will be at the SSI.org conference on the 29th 30,31st so if your there say hi.

As a science geek I enjoyed the 4 part videos from LPP power they are trying to do fusion on a shoestring and are being very open about the process. A long shot but if something like this works it changes the world..... Part 1

Composite Compatability tests.

I soaked 8 composite samples in 85% peroxide for about 5 hours at 70F.
Top Row:

• Epoxy with no fiber
• Glass fiber in epoxy
• Kevlar in Epoxy
• Carbon in Epoxy

Bottom Row: Vipel 010 Chemically resistant vinyl ester

• Vipel Resin no fiber
• Glass fiber with vipel
• Kevlar with Vipel
• Carbon Fiber with Vipel.

Experimental setup.
I set out 6 polyethylene cups with 300ml of 85% H2O2.
I tied polyester cord to each sample and placed them in the H2O2 solution.
They were placed so 75% of the sample was covered.
The Pure resin and glass fiber samples with the same resin shared a cup.
I put a clear polyethylene bag over each cup.
I periodically observed the samples.
I left them in the sun for ~5 hours.


The bags of 4 of the sample cups were clear, the bags over the two carbon fiber samples has fogged condensation on the inside of the bag. This seems to indicate some H2O2 decomposition.
It was not enough to measure any significant volume change.
None of the samples had shown any significant h2o2 decomposition. They were filled to 300ml +/-10ml and at the end they were all 300ml +/- 10ml.

I then removed the bags off the top of each cup with a long set of tongs.

After the 5 hours I was hesitant to handle the sample or move the containers as I was possible I'd created a hazardous solution. So I could not weight the samples.

After 5 hours the epoxy samples all had a layer of something floating on the top of the H2O2.
The Vipel samples had no visible contamination of the h2O2.

Then one by one for each sample (except the pure resins)

• I grabbed the loose cord tied to each sample with the tongs, carried them over the the wire fence and hung them on the fence.
• I then shot the sample with a 243 winchester with 85gr bullets from about 25 ft away. The impact velocity was 900 to 1000 m/sec.

None of the samples showed any sign of detonation or any increase in energy release from the rifle shot. I did not shoot the pure resin as I expected the pure resin would shatter and not provide any additional information.

After determining that none of the samples detonated I then individually dumped each h2O2 container on the dirt. (Mojave dirt is a great decomposition catalyst.) No notable difference in energy or release was noted.

I then removed each sample from the fence and soaked them in water to remove the peroxide.
The samples are shown in the picture above. The Vipel samples showed some surface etching, ie they had an oxide layer on the surface, but showed no significant structural degradation.
The epoxy samples wer reduced to bare fiber. There was almost no structure left.

In the picture both bare resins look discolored, but the Epoxy is bubbled and distored, where the layer on the vipel is just a surface layer its very thin. It almost looks like the oxide layer aluminum gets after a lot of peroxide exposure.

The company that makes the vipel F010 has an even more resistant resin, K190 that is harder to get. The K190 is rated for 50% peroxide at 100F for years of service.
Their chemical compatibility guide

When I'd finished pouring out the peroxide in the 6 cups I had a 100 ml or so left in my transfer cup. So I put a bunch of raw kevlar with no resin in that cup. It had ZERO reaction of any kind, no bubbles, no discoloration, no steam on the bag etc...

First test part in the bag

My first tank part attempt is in the vacuum bag and should be curing. Its been 90 minutes since I mixed the resin and its still fluid and not getting warm yet....I hope I converted drops of hardner to grams correctly for the resin mix.

It is a cold evening so.....it could just be slow

Having resin that does not go off makes a nightmare.
In any case I doubt the first attempt will be pretty....

Update the resin in the mixing cup got hard, I peeled the vacuum bag blotter felt and peelply and the underlying composite is still tacky. (Its really cold and damp in San Diego today so I'll let it sit another 24hrs.)
.

Tanks the other hard part

The Rocket Equation has a term that is the rocket motor efficiency and a term that is the mass ratio. In a pressure fed system the biggest component of that mass ratio is the tank.
If I could make a tank identical to a 2L soda bottle only 5 to 10 times bigger that would be almost ideal. I could probably find a mechanism, to join a bunch 2L soda bottles and I may pursue that, but I'm also going to try my hand at composite tanks. Toward that end I made mold forms for a 6" diameter cylindrical test tank mold. I heated it up and waxed it with mold release and setup the vacuum bag etc.. got ready for my first composite test part.

I have something non-rocket to do tonight, but tomorrow I hope to try making my first composite part since the solar plane project.

The first tanks will have glued Mylar liners that are not H2O2 safe, but the flight tanks will have mylar/PET liners with no glue. The jury is still out if the tanks will be seamed via vacuum heat, sonic welding, or RF welding.In addition to the liner I also want the tank to be chemically resistant to the H2O2. I want any liner failures to not be immediately catastrophic.

I'm getting a bunch of samples and setting up to do compatibility testing next weekend out at FAR. I'm testing glass, kevlar and carbon fibers with normal epoxy, vinyl ester and special chemically resistant vinyl ester resins. My gut says that plain E glass with the chem compatible resin will be fine, I'm almost certain that carbon with epoxy won't be. I hope the Kevlar and chem resistant resin also work as the kevlar is a bunch stronger than the glass.

Its a multi part test, start with 30% and work your way up to heated 85 or 90%. Anything past 50% really has to be done remotely. I'm planning to soak samples in PET soda bottle bottoms. sitting in hot water on a hot plate. The sample will have a string and pulley so I can pull the sample out of the solution remotely and shoot it with the 243. I could set up some kind of hammer and anvil test, but I worry that if it goes bang, the hammer becomes a projectile.

I figure I'll get the preliminary screening done this weekend and the samples that pass will get the hotplate test in two weeks.

A few ideas and loose ends

This week I learned that the NASA Nanosat prize is funded, (I thought it was a proposal not a funded prize.) So this clearly puts a bulls eye on a project target. This process starts with a notional vehicle and works backwards from the last stage. With a 1Kg payload I think that I can build a three stage launcher with a gross liftoff mass of less than 1000lbs.
To do something on this scale every gram matters. I'm starting to designbthe best 3rd stage I can and works backwards... (If you do a good enough job you only need two stages)

One needs:
Efficent light high expansion motor. Working on small motors via the DMLS project.

Really light tanks.....I've purchased all the large beverage containers I can find and am weighing and pressure testing them. So far the best tank is a 2l soda bottle. 100+PSI and mass ratio of > 40. A single soda bottle is not really enough. Any scheme to group them together is heavier than the bottle. So I'm looking at maybe fabricating my own tanks. The idea H2O2 tank would be mylar lined (mylar is another version of PET like in soda bottles) with chemically compatible resins and kevlar. Normal Epoxy and normal Carbon fiber are not happy with H2O2. All the tanks at this scale are up against minimum gage issues so whatever pressure you get in the tank will be more than really needed. In concept these seem very similar to the H2O2 tanks shown by Richard Speck of Micro-space at the 2007 LLC. I've got most of the materials to try this on the way. The biggest unknown issue is how to build the liner. If I can make the process in patent #3661675work that would be ideal.

Really light valves and actuators... probably all based on brushless model airplane servos. one can get lighter brushed parts, but must trade against the requirement to put them in a pressure box and the smallest brushless ones seem to be a win.

Guidance.... more on that later...


Regulation... This one is hard because the regulatory framework that applies to orbital launches is tailored toward something like a big Atlas. My current concept is to make the 2nd and 3rd stages really light and fluffy. Almost all plastic, including the valves and plumbing. Only the thrust chamber will be non-plastic. The first stage will probably be metal. The concept is to launch off shore so that thrid party safety from the first stage is constrained by physics and the 2nd and 3rd stages are too light to survive reentry. The real trick will be proving that and path taken by the 2nd stage will either burn up or land within the 1st stage constrained by physics zone. IE if it shoots straight back down its not going so fast so it might burn up. If it flies perfectly by the end of its burn then its going to fast to survive reentry. The question is what happens between these two zones. My nominal vehicle meets all of the amateur limits except the no orbit allowed rule. IE less than 200Klb/sec and orbital altitude less than 150km. (Rules say you only need to go around once.) more rambling to follow as I figure things out.

Anyone in SoCal with access to a 14" diameter 20" long vacuum oven that I could use to try the process described in the patent above would be really helpful.

More Printed Motor news...

The DMLS machine that is most common is an EOS270. The company that makes these machines has recently started adding some new materials. The new Material I'm most interested is Aluminum for chambers, and maybe Inconel 718 for a possible turbo pump.

I'd gotten some chamber quotes a year or so ago and it was still too expensive. When I had GPI quote my design again this year it was half of what last years quote was and I ordered the part on the spot. (In Stainless) GPI was also very helpful in making geometry suggestions that woul d improve the quality of the resultant part.

After placing this order I thought I'd do some more price research and sent the same file to Morris Tech to quote. The response from Morris was very competitive and its clear that this industry is seeing significant price declines. (Neither vendor knows what the other quoted) I hope its a sustainable trend and not a bloody battle to bankruptcy.

I really don't like beating vendors against each other because any long term relationship needs to be win-win and you can't do that by abusing your vendors. While it might be tempting to beat vendors prices against each other, its not some thing I do.

I also asked both Morris and GPI about the availability of Aluminum.
GPI indicated that they would soon be running Aluminum and Morris indicated that they had already run some Aluminum parts and that in the next few weeks they would be running some more aluminum test parts.

Since I was doing interesting stuff as an individual inventor not a big corporation Morris offered me the chance to add a single part to the Aluminum test run for approximately their direct cost. Its an offer I can't refuse. So I will soon have small DMLS chambers in two materials!

The Aluminum Motor is actually a bit bigger than the stainless motor as it needs to be cooled the whole length with a stainless cat pack support thermally isolated from the cooled aluminum chamber as a sleeve inside.

So if you need DMLS parts there are at least two really awesome DMLS vendors in the U.S.

http://www.morristech.com/
and
http://gpiprototype.com/

Why the motor has horns.

If you look at this post from July. You will see how the finished motor will look. Rather then spend lots of $$ making the simple upper section I only had the lower part printed with DMLS. The upper section where the cat pack will go is fabricated in the normal way from a sanitary fitting. It will and then be welded to the motor bottom.

The horns sticking out the side are the fuel feed. The fuel goes in the curved part and a 8-32 Set screw with a orifice drilled in it goes down the straight section. Then the end of the straight section gets plugged. You can buy predrilled orfices in 8-32 set screws from Mcmaster Car.

Here is a picture of all the bits before welding:

The two small parts are the machined elbows to connect the vertical feed tubes with the Chamber top.

Stainless Chamber bottom on the way.

I received this picture today:

Pressure Fed Upper Stage.

I've been doing some calculations on what an upper stage for the 1Kg Nanosat launcher would look like. One of the interesting twists is that if the motor only has to run in vacuum then it's ISP is almost independent of chamber pressure. So for any small launcher you are going to have minimum gauge problems long before you hit the minimum optimum tank wall thickness. This opens the possibility for tanks with things like 3L soda bottles and PVC valves. It makes me wonder why Space X went with the turbo pump 2nd stage for the F9. a lot of complexity for very little gain? Maybe just because they had one that was approximately the right size.

Some progress...

This weekend I worked on cleaning up my Garage.
I cleared the floor, two junk Tables and a cart. Everything I cleaned up now has a place. I still have piles on one bench and one cabinet. When those are done I need to start the task of going through all the storage containers, drawers etc.. and purge stuff I'm never going to use. A little bit more room would be really helpful. All in all I feel a lot better about the garage after putting three full days into it.

My Son and some of his friends went to burning man so just as I start to get a handle on the garage the truck comes back from Burning man filling the garage with dust covered stuff..... they have been working evenings getting it cleaned up so I can't really complain.

I tried to fill the porosity of my printed motor with some solder and I just could not get good penetration. It didn't stick to the stainless even using some fairly aggressive acid flux. As a result I redid my printed motor design for the DMLS process and had it quoted by GPI prototype. Their price was about 4X the Shapeways price, but the part is thinner and needs a lot less welding. (Its also about 2/3 of what I though it would be.) I ordered it Tuesday, so we should get it some time in the next two weeks. The parts on the DMLS "showcase" always look incredible. I asked them to give me the best possible price so please give it to be raw off the machine. It will be interesting to see the raw finish.

An Orbital Vehicle Part 1

What does it take to build an orbital vehicle?
My interest is in something really small say a nano sat launcher. This is going to require more performance than a larger rocket as air drag has so much more effect. I'll start with John Whiteheads paper. For a LOX Hydrocarbon stage to get to a 200Km orbit he says we need ~9500 m/sec Delta V and for a 1T vehicle. This paper claims this was a simple analysis, and I always like to cross check. From the Falcon 1 Users guide table 2-1 we get the following:

2nd stage:

1200lb empty

8900 lb propellant

400kg (880lb) payload

317s ISP

Using the rocket equation I get 5173 m/sec DV

1st stage:

3000 lb empty

47380 propellant

10980 lb Payload(The 2nd stage)

300 s ISP

Using the rocket equation I get 4353 m/sec DV

Total DV 9526 m/sec

Extrapolating in the "How Small" paper we get about 9250 for a Falcon 1 sized vehicle. So I have a source to give me some target numbers and have independently verified that the numbers are not wildly off. So we need to design a vehicle with 9700 m/sec of Dv to go orbital.

The 180 sec LLC vehicles needed 1765m/sec DV. So orbit is a whole bunch harder. We could use the LLC L1 level of technology and stage 5 times this would weight 750K lbs. Clearly we need to do better. All but the first state will run in vacuum, they don't need to throttle, we don't need landing gear, so we should be able to do a lot better. My initial spread sheet says its quite possible with a three stage H2O2/Hydrocarbon vehicle. To do it in 2 stages would require developing a lightweight pump or making the vehicle really big. I'm going to refine my inital guess and publish it in the next week or so.

Keeping a neat Shop...

My review at my first ever "real" engineering job said something like:

"Paul Moves his assigned projects directly to the desired result with exceptional speed and skill leaving a trail of destruction in his wake."

This was a job where we built real prototype hardware controlled by electronics and
some of the earliest embedded computers. (6502 anyone?). I got the Job done but I left a wake of debris behind. Not much has changed. My rocket shop occupies a two car garage and a 8x10' office at my home. I find the continuous mess and inability to find things is probably the biggest frustration in my life.

I intellectually realize that I'm whining about my own personal shortcomings and should just gut it out and clean up my space. In my life I've never achieved that for any period of time measured in units longer than an hour. So I'm asking my readers if anyone has successfully overcome the this particular demon? I'm open to suggestions?

Its really a two part problem

Part One I have way to much stuff crammed in too small a space. So it needs a Major organizational redo. ( I can actually envision someday solving this part of the problem.)

Part Two once everything is organized how does one maintain cleaned up?
The Failure Scenario goes something like: Come home from work, family is going to have dinner in an hour so I go out to garage and start machining a pressure test plug, then dinner is called and I go in and eat... not to return to that project for a few days. This is complicated by the fact that I often have half a dozen partially finished projects in work at one time and I work on the different projects as I'm inspired to do so. This is not a complete failure as I actually do finish a significant percentage of what I start. (It may take 12 calendar months on a project that is only one real week of work)

Some specific questions for comment:

How do you handle partially finished projects in a way that you can efficiently task switch without leaving piles of half done all over the shop?

How do you decide when to throw something out?
Our current rule is if it is not a tool and has not been touched in (Replacement Cost /25) months it goes in the trash. If the value is over $250 it goes in the ebay pile... (The Ebay pile may someday actually make its way onto ebay)

How often do you redo your storage systems.....
How much dynamic range to you leave for expansion?
IE I have a drawer for AN male elbows. When I create the drawer its 25% full, a year later its over full and won't close so it sits on top the pile....


Has anyone ever tried to hire someone to clean up/ maintain their shop?
How did that work? How did you find such a person?
In So Cal one can find lots of low skill labor that will follow directions, but I think I really need someone that knows the difference between a drill bit and a mill bit, a servo and a valve etc...

Do you think it would be possible to hire a Science/Tech interested high school student to work on this without leaving them emotionally scared for life?

Getting back to rockets.

I've been working on several different projects. My printed motor looks finished, but when I pressure test it leaks EVERYWHERE so I can try to fill the pores with tin and silver solder being careful not to clog cooling passages or get silver where it shouldn't be, (Silver is catalytic with H2O2) or I can see if I can afford having the part made by the better DMLS process. I just sent out a modified 3D model to have that quoted.

I have my custom GPS front end digitizer done and most of the FPGA work done for fast correlation hardware , but I have not put all the parts together and applied power. I hope to get to that in the next month or so.

I also have a few small electronic projects I committed to do for FAR infrastructure so I need to spend some time on that this month as well.


The potential NASA nanosat launcher prize may change my path, but I'm still thinking the year or so out goal is a reusable vehicle that can go to 100Km and back. It will be much smaller than the Masten and or Armadillo plans. It will also look more rocket like.

Four years ago I bought an 02 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab to drive back and forth to the desert in a reliable comfortable truck. I've since put an additional 110K miles on it and two weeks ago Sunday it tried to kill me by blowing out the rear end and locking up the rear wheels. I spun it pretty hard, got it on two wheels, but did not flip it or hit any thing. I knew I eventually had to replace the truck, I'd just spend 1K getting the truck all ready for the fall rocket season,
new brakes, AC system cleaned up etc...

I have a general rule that I don't let a vehicle strand me more that twice. The dodge already left me stranded about a year ago with a blown water pump, this was its second misdeed. So I went out and bought a year old 09 Super Crew F150 It has 17K miles on it and I got a good deal. This sets the rocket budget back a little bit, but business seems to be recovering and it should not be a big issue much beyond the first of the year.

I'm actually getting excited about working on rockets again and hope to get back to regular progress in the next month or so.

NanoSat Centennial Challenge

The cost of getting to orbit is the real barrier to space exploration, settlement, and harnessing of off earth resources. The difficulty of the problem makes it hard for small innovative organizations to have a shot at making a launcher for commercially interesting payloads. Doing a nanosat launcher is not as difficult. The New NanoSat contest looks very good. If I had the resources to offer a significant prize it would look very similar to the NanoSat prize. I'd add some bells and whistles like a bonus for a reusable vehicle and a junior league 100gm category, but all in all it looks almost perfect.

More printed Motor Progress

The printed Motor parts are all here, I have a few things to finish and it will be ready to run.
I made the tubes for the fuel input too short and connecting to them is going to take some creativity. The end cap with o-ring grove, clearance for flow and fingers to push down on the cat pack turned out well:
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I've sent out the order to get the catalyst retainers water jet cut.
All the bits and pieces should be here by mid month. If I will decide to brave FAR/Mojave in peak summer is a different question. There is a real possibility it won't get tested till mid to late September. Business continues to go reasonably well, this means that I should be able to ramp up my rocketry projects after the first of the year.