LRE 2018 – Launch
We had a blast! GIGA II flew to 8.792m and approx Mach 1.7. Click here for for further details.
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GIGA II – Nose cone avionics and electronics bay
Nose cone avionics The nose cone avionics of the GIGA II have been re-built after the CATO. Keeping the original basic design with some minor modifications. One of the failure modes evident was that the nose cone tip with central M6 threaded rod was missing and ripped itself, including the nut, through an aluminium U-profile taking
KILO 5GXL – Slow white static test 04-02-2018
On Saturday 04.02.2018 we organized a small static test party. I wanted to test the KILO 5GXL motor measuring both thrust as well as chamber pressure. My current set up only allows for chamber pressure and to determine the Isp I needed actual thrust readings for which I needed the static test stand from LD.
KILO 5GXL – Slow white static test preparation
Some pictures of KILO 5GXL motor on a Slow white APCP reload.
Slow White unimodal pourable propellant – Charaterization tests
Characterization tests of the Slow White pourable propellant with unimodal AP 200um propellant at Kn 424-643. This is a 60mm OD / 50mm ID test motor with 2G neutral burning bates grains. As the name already implies the propellant is indeed slow burning and needs a high Kn to get the most out of the Isp in this short motor.
Slow white pourable propellant mixing with all 200um AP
Mixing of a small 700gr batch of “slow white” APCP pourable propellant for characterization tests. Actually this bimodal formula calls for ¼ part op 90µm AP but I have found this difficult to obtain. Hence the all 200µm AP. The AP I have contains 25% by weight of particles 0-150µm so I hope this comes close to the
HTPB test batches
Awaiting some final ingredients I started to characterize the old-stock HTPB. I expect the HTPB I have is similar to R45HTLO so an EW of 1190 is used in the curative calculations. Small 50gr batches (measured to a hundreds of a gram) were made to evaluate the different Cure Indexes 0.9 – 1.3. The curative
KILO 12G KNER – New hardware for upcoming static test
UPDATE 20170907: Due to the KNER propellant misbehaving during casting, I opted not to invest any resources in this KILO 12G KNER project anymore. What I noticed during casting KNER in the casting tube is that the solid KN particles settled towards the bottom of the grain. Leaving 25mm of plain ER at the top. With the normal
GIGA 86mm – KILO 12G CATO Final thoughts
Final thoughts on the CATO / overpressurization of the KILO 12G KNSB motor at the LRE 2017 launch: The motor had a very conservative port-to-throat area ratio of 1.5 to prevent velocity based erosive burning. This resulted in a higher than necessary, Knaverage of 700 and thus higher Maximum Expected Operating Pressure (MEOP). Mass flux based erosive burning. Little has been described about
LRE 2017 – Launch
“We had a bad day”. This pretty much sums up our launch day at LRE 2017. First LD’s CHIRON 3 rocket overpressurized in a spectacular way, taking out the upper 2/3rd of the launch rail. A makeshift launch rail was made and the GIGA was launched from the remaining 2,5m lower section. The GIGA rocket suffered the