This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Mk2 Stager with bigger booster and sustainer

This weekend we flew the Mk2. Stager with a bigger booster and a bigger sustainer to see how it performs under greater loads and higher pressure. The Baryon II booster has a 7.2L capacity, 15mm nozzle and launches with 2.8L of water. The 3.35L Tachyon V sustainer uses a 9mm nozzle and 1300ml of water/foam mix. We flew both at 120psi.


It was a good flight, but the high wind conditions on the day caused the rocket to fly in an arc rather than straight up and as a result did not reach the expected altitude. Staging happened as expected and both parachutes on the booster and sustainer opened as expected.


We are currently putting together a flight log update, although it will be perhaps a week before it is posted, as we are also in the process of completing the write-up of the thermal experiments we did last week. There wasn't enough time to post the thermal results last week as most of our spare time was taken up building the new booster and sustainer. Sometimes you have to find the balance between sitting at the computer typing and actually building hardware.

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