Following the previous month's abortive launch attempt, we regrouped for another shot. This time, the launch was a big heavily attended one - ROC-Stock XXI. Preparations were a little more complete for this launch, with L3CC Greg Lawson in attendance and Ron McGough's awesome new launch trailer and ground support assistance available. Having Ron's 20 foot rail would ease my worries somewhat about crosswinds during a slow liftoff.
After camping out on the playa the previous night, preparation started in earnest in the morning. Having been through this drill last month, assembly and prep went pretty smoothly. L3CC Greg Lawson checked and approved the rocket for the cert attempt. But that's when the smooth sailing started getting choppy...
Ron's newly completed trailer launcher had yet to be christened with it's first flight. Before our flight could take place, Ron would need to test it out first with a shakedown flight. Ron flew a Hypertek flight from his rig that morning, and all appeared to go well. So the way was clear for us to load up the WAC to fly in the increasingly warm midday sun.
When the rocket was loaded on the rail, the first problem was encountered when attempting to insert the fill stem into the motor. The stem was binding in the injector bell, and appeared to have somehow become deformed out of round. More time elapsed while the hunt was on for a replacement stem and it was eventually swapped out in Ron's GSE. Once the stem was finally installed in the motor, a brief test fill was run to check for leaks. Unfortunately, a large leak immediately sprang from the base of the fill stem elbow fitting. It seems that during the shakedown flight that morning, the fill assembly banged hard into the ground, bending and cracking a fitting. It would need to be repaired. Back to square one...
As the afternoon wore on and the wind began to increase, work proceeded feverishly to complete repairs on the launch equipment. Would this day end in another non-launch? The familiar (and unwelcome) feeling of big launch stress jitters was starting to peak... Eventually things were ready to go again and although marginal, the wind conditions had not deteriorated any further. With some trepidation, we took a deep breath and declared a "go" for launch.
We chose to watch the fill and launch from a position out on the range east of the trailer, rather than going back to the range head. At launch time, winds were moderate (perhaps 10 mph) from the west and the temperature was probably close to 90. At ignition, the WAC left the pad with greater speed than I was expecting. I had heard that high temperatures reduce the oxidizer density in hybrids, but that it also boosts the peak thrust somewhat; this might explain the speedier than expected liftoff. Or perhaps it was all just my imagination! In any case, the rocket lifted off smartly with a slight weathercocking to the west. Although its trajectory took it into the sun, we could follow coast to apogee and see the perfect separation just past the top. The payload chute deployed immediately, and the drogue could be seen inflating a couple seconds after that.
At this point I was feeling comparatively relieved; all the critical events were successfully accomplished except the last one... Then we waited for the main chute to come out... and waited... Eventually the reality hit that something was wrong. The main was not going to to put in an appearance, and there would be no L3 today :-( The question was, how hard would the landing be?
There wasn't long to wait to find out; less than a minute and a half after apogee, the booster thumped down just east of us at a painful 45 feet per second. On first examination, it didn't look too bad. There was some crunching of the edge of one of the honeycomb fins, but the damage was more cosmetic than structural. Examination of the other end however, revealed more issues. It was immediately clear what had spoiled the main deployment. By bad luck (or bad design, depending on your point of view) the Kelvar tether on the piston drouge had wrapped itself around the main harness, restrain the chute from pulling out of its bay. All the electronics and charges had functioned perfectly, but a simple tangle spoiled the attempt. As troublesome as that was, it was also obvious that the front end of the booster had been heavily damaged when it slapped the ground. Although the outer Kevlar and carbon laminates were pretty intact, the phenolic inside shattered pretty badly. Not only was the structure of the airframe tube shot, but the phenolic shards pierced the ejection cannon inside. I was pretty clear that this section of the rocket would require either extensive repair, or more likely, replacement.
Once back at camp, we found that Carl Delzell was kind enough to track down and return the payload section for us. Reading out the altimeters showed the flight performance was very good, slightly exceeding pre-flight simulations. The Missileworks Co-Pilot indicated a peak altitude of 4004 ft., while the Perfectflite MAWD indicated 3796 ft. Whatever problems were faced with the recovery phase, the boost phase went pretty much exactly as predicted. So now it was time to ponder the lessons learned and plan strategy for the next attempt...