 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||
|
|
 Previous: FCC Opts for Status Quo at 2300 to 2305 MHz |  Next: The Amateur Amateur: Short-Lived Success with Shortwave |
A jubilant CSXT team gathers for a group photo with their rocket just prior to the disastrous September 19 launch attempt. [CSXT Photos] |
Launch preps: Everything went "very very smoothly" until a few seconds into launch. Here, CSXT team members prepare for launch. |
Moment of truth: The CSXT Primera rocket's motor failed about three seconds into the flight at an altitude of about 3000 feet. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 15, 2002--What began as a perfectly magnificent morning in the Nevada desert September 19 ended in a disastrous launch failure for a group of Amateur Radio operators and amateur rocket enthusiasts. The Civilian Space Xploration Team's (CSXT) Primera rocket engine failed a few seconds into its flight, and the rocket was destroyed. CSXT team members had hoped the suborbital vehicle, which carried several Amateur Radio payloads, would be the first amateur-built rocket to reach space--an altitude of more than 60 nautical miles.
"It was very exciting. The sun came up, and the rocket was there, and we activated all of the computer systems, and everything came up fine," recalled Avionics Manager and CSXT Program Co-Leader Eric Knight, KB1EHE, of Unionville, Connecticut--one of the several hams involved in the project. "Everything went very very smoothly."
At the moment of launch, Knight said, "it was glorious, it just looked fantastic! It lifted off the pad just as it was planned to do." Until everything went terribly wrong three seconds after the launch.
"There were a lot of people in tears," he said. "This is something for which everybody put their lives on hold for a couple of years. It was a very very upsetting thing." The team members went through "a period of mourning" as they went about the range picking up the pieces of the rocket that had "looked so stellar just a couple of hours before," Knight said. "It was very tough to swallow at that point."
No one was hurt in the incident, which Knight--perhaps unconsciously borrowing the sort of neutral vocabulary typical for a NASA spokesperson--called "a worst-case situation." Amazingly and unexpectedly, the Amateur Radio avionics survived the rocket's destruction and continued operating until they struck the desert floor, Knight said.
"We were extraordinarily pleased with the way the electronics performed. If there was an bright spot, he said, it was that the avionics--all based on ham radio technology and built by hams--worked flawlessly. "We had perfect video of the launch from the rocket right through the motor failure," he said. The avionics are "definitely performance-proven" and "exceeded anything we might have expected." All members of the avionics team are ham radio licensees.
The upbeat Knight said team members, while initially stunned and devastated, remain undeterred. "We will be pressing ahead for a launch possibly again next year," he said. "It does not look like an insurmountable problem to us." The CSXT team has been undertaking a detailed failure analysis since September. "It was only a speed bump in our overall process." Knight called his teammates "a very resilient bunch" and determined to go forward.
The disaster means starting over largely from scratch. "There probably will not be any reusable parts," Knight said. "The vehicle essentially was a total loss." Along with their hopes and dreams for success this time went a considerable amount of hard cash--on the order of $130,000--that came right out of the members' pockets.
"It's a major loss," Knight said, conceding that the team was pretty much tapped out at this point. "We're actively looking for sponsors right now and people who would like to have their name and brand tied in with such a historic endeavor." Primera Technology was the only corporate sponsor for the failed launch.
"The positive thing is it's a fixable problem," said Knight. "We have a very sound rocket."
Knight said he'd like to see another launch attempt "sooner rather than later," but there are a number of variables yet to be worked out--including the launch location and obtaining launch permissions. Rebuilding the rocket itself and replicating the avionics will take a few months.
"Everybody's very excited that we have a really sound launch vehicle and everybody's looking forward to the next launch," Knight said. "We're still moving forward."
Ky Michaelson, CSXT's founder and Program Director, concurred that an initial review of the failure points to a correctable situation. "We're optimistic we can make the appropriate engineering adjustments--and keep our historic program on track," he was quoted as saying in a CSXT news release.
The September attempt was the group's third. High winds scrubbed a launch planned for late June, and an attempt in 2000 got off the ground but just missed its mark.
CSXT describes the Primera rocket--at 17 feet tall and weighing slightly more than 500 pounds--as "the most powerful amateur rocket ever created."
Additional information is available on the CSXT Web site
| Previous: FCC Opts for Status Quo at 2300 to 2305 MHz | Next: The Amateur Amateur: Short-Lived Success with Shortwave |
