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 Previous: ARRL, United Technologies Announce Emergency Communications Initiative |  Next: The Waterway Radio and Cruising Club--WRCC |
 Rod Lane, N1FNE (left) and Eric Knight, KB1EHE, hold the stacked Amateur Radio payloads that will fit inside the rocket nose cone. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Jun 19, 2002--If all goes as planned, a group of Amateur Radio operators and amateur rocket enthusiasts is poised to make aerospace history this summer by putting the first amateur rocket into space. The Civilian Space Xploration Team (CSXT) is hoping the suborbital vehicle will carry its Amateur Radio payloads to an altitude of more than 60 nautical miles.
"Amateur Radio is central to the whole flight," said Eric Knight, KB1EHE, of Unionville, Connecticut--one of the hams involved. He explained that the rocket's Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS), amateur TV and packet telemetry gear will enable the team to document its success.
"Space" is defined as 50 nautical miles. The
team is aiming to attain an altitude of 62 nautical miles with its rocket--the
Primera Spaceshot 2002. (Primera Technology is a primary sponsor for the
project and is helping with support and materials, Knight says.)
 This Rubbermaid container, which the team calls "Nomad," contains Amateur Radio patches--including two ARRL logos--as well as flags and other mementos of personal significance to the team members. |
Other amateurs involved include Rod Lane, N1FNE--whose Southington, Connecticut, garage and basement workshop have been largely given over to rocket construction and integration--and Don Skinner, N1HWR, of Tariffville, Connecticut. Assisting in the project for the past three years has been high school senior Julia Cohn, KB1IGU, of West Hartford, Connecticut. Cohn has been involved in constructing and programming some of the sequencing electronics that will go aboard the vehicle.
"We're proud to have her as part of the
team," Knight said. Her electronics instructor and mentor
at Hall High School is Chet Bacon, KA1ILH, of Plantsville, Connecticut. Other students in Bacon's electronics classes also have contributed to
the project.
 Don Skinner, N1HWR, works on one of the electronics modules that will be installed in the nose cone. |
In all, Knight says, 16 "key people"--including spouses--have immersed themselves in the rocket project. Among them is a real rocket scientist, Jerry Larson, an "almost ham" and an engineer with Lockheed Martin in Colorado. The team has built the vehicle itself, right down to the solid rocket propellant grain.
Overseeing the CSXT effort is Project Director Ky Michaelson of Minnesota, a semi-retired stuntman and veteran hobby rocket enthusiast who holds dozens of rocket speed records. Knight credits Michaelson with conceptualizing what he called "our grand project."
"It was his inspiration that led to the project," Knight said. "Ky has donated substantial time, resources, and design instincts to bring the project to fruition." He's also the project's primary personal financier, Knight said. Michaelson serves as president of the National Experimental Rocketry Association.
To say that the project has become nearly all-consuming would be an understatement. "We're passionate about it," Knight said, estimating that the team members--whom he describes as "people with a love of rocketry"--easily have spent hundreds of hours apiece over the course of the five-year mission. At this point, they've been working almost around-the-clock, he said.
Funding for the project has come from team members' pockets. Knight estimates the costs to date are approaching $100,000. Machining for the nose cone alone cost on the order of $5000. "A lot of our vacation money goes into this," Knight said. "We've convinced our wives that the desert is a good place to spend a couple of weeks."
 Budding rocketeer: Senior Julia Cohn, KB1IGU, hard at work at Hall High School's electronics lab. She was the only student to sign up for the highest level electronics class this year. "I don't know why I signed up for electronics, but it was the best decision I ever made," Cohn says. She's been licensed for two months. |
Knight says the rocket was to have flown last September 26, "but then September 11 happened." The team lost its Federal Aviation Administration authorization to launch; it was only reinstated this spring. The team also has made the necessary FCC notifications.
The rocket team already has logged some successes. In September 2000, the team's first rocket almost made it into space--missing by less than a second of flight time because of a faulty fin that came loose at nearly five times the speed of sound. That vehicle set a world speed record for the fastest land, sea or air vehicle built by amateurs--3205 MPH.
The new rocket is about 18 feet tall, and its engine can generate some 7000 lbs of thrust. Two days before it was shipped to the launch site, the team conducted a "spin test," which essentially simulates the launch and flight of the rocket. "This is the most critical thing we're going to do," said Knight.
 Spin test: Tenth-grader Mark Smith (left) eagerly awaits the beginning of the final, most important test the team will perform before the rocket is shipped to its launch site. Eric Knight, KB1EHE (middle), and teacher Chet Bacon, KA1ILH, go over the last minute details before the GPS unit is turned on, and the spin test begins. The modified potters wheel will simulate the speed at which the rocket will spin following launch. |
In addition to proving out the durability of the rocket's construction--including the components inside--the spin test was to ensure that the onboard GPS system remained operational while the vehicle spins. "Others who have tried this failed, because the GPS unit shut down," Knight explained.
The test was conducted on the grounds of Hall High School in West Hartford, where Knight was joined by Bacon and three other students who have contributed to the rocket project. The team placed the nose cone on a modified potter's wheel and waited for the GPS system to lock. Once the packet messages starting coming in, the simulated "launch" began. The rocket was spun from zero to 7.6 cycles per second for 15 seconds and maintained at that rate for four minutes.
"This is a big day," said Knight as he watched the test progress. "A lot has come down to this."
 Julia Cohn, KB1IGU (left) and her teacher and mentor Chet Bacon, KA1ILH--whom she affectionately calls "Bacon"--share a lighter moment. Cohn plans to attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts this fall and study engineering. She attributes a stint at Space Camp last year with whetting her interest in rocketry. |
Knight later reported that the test was a complete success and another record to boot. "As far as our team has been able to determine, this is the fastest that a sounding rocket has been spun--including commercial and government sounding rockets--while still maintaining GPS signal lock," Knight reported.
Once at the launch site, the rocket will
undergo a full day of testing followed by a full day of launch simulation
exercises. If everything is a go, the big launch would take place the following
day. The team is not releasing the launch date or location because of
limitations on the number of visitors allowed at the site, which is owned by
the US government.
 Tenth grader Wayne Lee--another of Chet Bacon's electronics class students--assembles an LED flasher inside a discarded pill container. The flashers will be lined up to guide the team members back to the main road once they return to their vehicles for the trip back to town. |
Once the vehicle attains maximum altitude, it will be split into two pieces, and parachutes will deploy to carry them back to Earth. "It will come back, one way or the other," Knight said. The rocket is expected to travel a parabolic route that will carry it some 26 miles away from the launch site.
Like the "rocket boys" in rocketeer Homer Hickam's autobiography October Sky (also a movie), the team is in it for the honor and excitement.
"There's no prize or reward whatsoever," Knight said, "only the historic recognition of being the first amateurs to build and launch a rocket into space." (There used to be a $250,000 prize, but it expired in 2000, Knight explained.)
More information on the rocket project is on
Knight's "Spaceshot 2001/Spaceshot
2002" Web site.--Jennifer Hagy, N1TDY, assisted in the preparation
and editing of this report
| Previous: ARRL, United Technologies Announce Emergency Communications Initiative | Next: The Waterway Radio and Cruising Club--WRCC |
