- Joined
- Nov 5, 2016
- Messages
- 178
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The last few months have been really busy with 9 more flights of the Falcon 9. That includes four 500 mile round trips from San Francisco to Reno Nevada in six weeks. In between launches, printing broken parts and putting rockets back together has consumed all of my spare time.
I'm happy to report that every flight had successful ignition of all 9 motors! The design that works is a combination of using superglue to secure the fuse and QuickDip pyrogen on the both ends of each fuse to secure it inside the motor. I also trim the igniter plug to prevent it from impacting the fuse on ignition.
Sadly I lost an entire Falcon 9 rocket 1st stage in an Oak Tree in Hollister on April 27th. But that made do a new build (which I have not done in quite a while):
2nd stage ignition and recovery has continued to be a challenge. The magnetic ring that secures the Crew Dragon Capsule sometimes prevents parachute ejection. And I think 2nd stage ignition sometimes fails when the 2nd stage pops off of the first stage before the motor ignited. Debugging those problems are my current focus.
As I learn to take better videos, I'm learning more about these flights. For example I did not realize the rocket was off the rail by the time all 9 motors were ignited. Here is the last frame in the above video where you can see only two of the A10PT motors have started to fire.
[edit]
I forgot to mention that the last three Falcon 9 flights successfully tested a new fin design that uses a smaller tip-to-tip profile
I love that I cannot show that to you in the photo below but I trimmed about an inch off my old fin design with no adverse effect on flight stability. That makes this rocket way easier to transport.
To give you some idea, this shows about the amount of fin I no longer need.
I'm happy to report that every flight had successful ignition of all 9 motors! The design that works is a combination of using superglue to secure the fuse and QuickDip pyrogen on the both ends of each fuse to secure it inside the motor. I also trim the igniter plug to prevent it from impacting the fuse on ignition.
Sadly I lost an entire Falcon 9 rocket 1st stage in an Oak Tree in Hollister on April 27th. But that made do a new build (which I have not done in quite a while):
2nd stage ignition and recovery has continued to be a challenge. The magnetic ring that secures the Crew Dragon Capsule sometimes prevents parachute ejection. And I think 2nd stage ignition sometimes fails when the 2nd stage pops off of the first stage before the motor ignited. Debugging those problems are my current focus.
As I learn to take better videos, I'm learning more about these flights. For example I did not realize the rocket was off the rail by the time all 9 motors were ignited. Here is the last frame in the above video where you can see only two of the A10PT motors have started to fire.
[edit]
I forgot to mention that the last three Falcon 9 flights successfully tested a new fin design that uses a smaller tip-to-tip profile
I love that I cannot show that to you in the photo below but I trimmed about an inch off my old fin design with no adverse effect on flight stability. That makes this rocket way easier to transport.
To give you some idea, this shows about the amount of fin I no longer need.
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