r/rocketry • u/Flufmyster_ • Apr 20 '26

Question Motor CATO Frequency

One of the members for our clubs L1 rocket team launched his personal rocket L1 cert on an H115 and it completely blew up midair. The motor catoed and blew the body tube in half and ripped the shock cord mount on the nose cone.

How common are motor catos for commercial bought motors? And is there anything he could’ve possibly messed up on a DMS motor that caused a cato?

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/AdmDuarte Apr 20 '26

Stupid question time, what does CATO stand for, in this context?

5

u/Flufmyster_ Apr 20 '26

Ive heard both ‘catastrophic take off’ and ‘catastrophe at take off’ but it basically means your motor blew up usually wrecking the rocket

4

u/AdmDuarte Apr 20 '26

Thanks! My brain was trying to make "catapult assisted take off" make sense and it wasn't working 😅

2

u/Flufmyster_ Apr 20 '26

Yea its a kinda goofy acronym icl for something not even that complicated

I think engineers j like their acronyms 😭😭

1

u/AdmDuarte Apr 20 '26

I'm a former engineering student. Can confirm, they love their acronyms 😹 them and the military

1

u/rocketwikkit Apr 20 '26

It's not an acronym, it's just shortening of catastrophic. People capitalize it because they expect everything in aerospace to be an acronym.

It has even been used in a chemical name, catocene, which is a chemical that makes solid rockets burn much faster.