To infinity and beyond

The first Sunday of every month is EARS (East Anglian Rocketry Society) day in our house, where Alex goes to launch rockets. Al wants to be an Aerospace Engineer, and has applied for university place on Aeronautical Engineering courses starting this September. Yep, my boy literally wants to be a rocket scientist.

So, off we went to EARS this morning, just twenty minutes from home. The rocket Al wanted to launch today is for UKROC, a competition aimed at students where they have to design and launch a rocket to certain specifications. This year the spec is to carry two eggs, sideways; bottom diameter of rocket needs to be less than the top section; aiming to reach 240m; separate into two separate parts; and section with the egg needs the land as close to 42 seconds from launch as possible.

The launch went well, reaching 202m, successfully separating into the two parts which both landed safely on parachute recovery. One of the eggs was unharmed, the other was slightly cracked (thankful for hard boiling them for this test flight).

The design of the rocket is considered a success, with some tweaking to be done over the next few weeks to achieve a little more height as well as more packing for the eggs.

For those interested, the rocket launched off a cluster of motors, 3 x D12-5.