Those little Estes rockets you built as a kid just got blown out of the water.
In response to the Carmack Prize to launch an amateur rocket above 100,000 feet, [Derek Deville] and the rest of the Qu8k team launched a 320 pound, 14-foot-long rocket through 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Unlike our little toy rockets from years ago, more than half of the entire rocket is fuel. This isn’t a plastic or salami-powered hybrid rocket, though. It’s an entirely solid fuel rocket. The fuel grain is specially made for this rocket in a cylinder-with-fins shape that ensures an even burn through the entire flight.
The payload included 2 timers, an accelerometer, a cosmic ray detector (check out the Geiger tube) and 4 GPS units required of the Carmack Prize. The video from the on-board camera shows a fantastic flight, only partially obscured by the plastic aeroshroud that melted when the rocket was going about Mach 3.
Videos of the entire flight and a ‘highlights’ reel are available after the break.
Filed under: misc hacks
