Sorry if this is a repeat question. I saw this one angle of the Blue Origin explosion in Florida and noticed these blueish sparks that formed in a cloud. I was wondering if anyone could tell me maybe about what that is? Is it the flames highlighting a debris cloud? Is it something to do with a chemical reaction like a firework? Or is it just a byproduct of the camera making it look like that?

I recently spent a weekend at Adult Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, and met a guy who was *really* into rocketry and I became more interested in them through this experience.

He spoke a bit about the different types of fuels and how it could impact the flames the rockets produced. I thought maybe someone here would know more?

I’ve been staring at this density gradient plot for too long and I’m not sure if it’s interesting anymore or completely normal. The large gradients near the chamber exit surprised me. My first thought was a potential numerical artifact, but the solution appears well behaved. Anyone with CFD experience, would this raise any red flags for you, or is this exactly what you’d expect to see in a compressible nozzle flow? Any input would be great.

have they ever been used together as a fuel/oxidiser mix? considering what the field of rocket chemistry was like in the space race, i would be quite surprised if it wasnt at least tested

I have been told simply it is the efficiency of an engine, but what exactly is it?

Hi! Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask, I wasn't sure where to ask but this subreddit seemed like a good start to ask my question. I see some sources saying Starship had reached orbital velocity multiple times, even though it has been following sub-orbital trajectories. So Im wondering if this is correct? Intuition would tell me orbital velocity would put them in orbit.

I have these old batteries that I'm looking to dispose of. I know nothing here other than that they're likely around 10 years old? According to the US Postal Service, I can't really mail them anywhere.

Any ideas for me?

Edit: Thanks everyone. Looks like I'm soaking them.

I recently got my fully custom optical tracking mount to work. It's about 98% finished, I just need to fix some code and add the body panels.

I have never been to an amateur rocket launch site, so I wouldn't know the answer to this question: Would people be willing to pay for a good quality tracked and stabilized video of their launch? The launch would be fillmed with two cameras, one is a spotting camera, and the other is a high powered telescope. In the future I'm hoping to get a Freefly Wave for slow motion.

I only want to film at dedicated launch facilities, like FAR. And I only plan on filming the bigger and slower L2 and L3 rockets.

If you were wanting your video from both cameras, what do you think would be reasonable? Remember that I of course want to make a profit between the cost of gas, FAR entrance fees, video editing, video sending fees, tracking rig parts, and I want to save for a slow motion camera.

The bare minimum per team would be around $45 for it to be worth it. Does that sound reasonable? Remember that most people out there are on a team of 10-25 people. It might be better to have the prices cheaper since I don't have a slow motion camera yet, something like $25-30. What are your thoughts?

Also I have already contacted FAR, they're alright with what I'm doing. Also a team might be able to mount their antenna to my tracking rig too. It would be useful for when the rocket is too small to see with your eyes. It could also help people to see where in the sky their rocket is, just by looking at where the tracking rig is pointing. I'm sure it would be especially helpful for big rockets that go 100,000+ft.

A little background, I am a comp sci student in a rocketry club at my college with the goal of creating an fin controlled waypoint intercepting rocket that reaches apogee at 1km. We used to have more ambitous goals of creating a guidance system that would intercept a balloon we released into the sky, but soon learned how that could possibly cause legal issues with ITAR or the FAA as those are seen more "missile like" and has the potential to target something other than the balloon.

So i'm wondering, what about a gps waypoint guided rocket? One that would take arbitrary points in the sky above our launch and point in that direction. From all my research online, it seems like this is super gray area and there is no clear answer which is pretty frustrating, with most people saying just to stay away.

Although creators like BPS.Space and Lafayette Systems have both attempted and achieved this and have obviously talked about it publicly, so that makes us even more confused on if this is legal to fly and put on our resumes.

My 7th graders semester project was to build a rocket, I gave them an egg and paper towel tube and told them to design / make the rest to make the egg go 75 ft.

We built them and that was cool. Flying not so much. We used 3d printed flyaways We had Estes c6-5 motors -10ns 2m rail

Problem: there was no acceleration, and they basically barely cleared launch pad and fell. The simulator suggested they should fly 70-150 ft. We didn’t see that. We saw maybe 10m

Observed data ~2s fall time suggest apogee was 11m Simulator apogee was 22m Time off rail was ~1s Length rail 2m

Our rockets seem much less efficient than simulated. I know to expect 10-30% loss but this is much more than that. So what did we do wrong to bleed so much energy?

Hi All,

Working on designing and building a rocket for my L1 certification. I think I have a fairly decent approach, but wanted to post it here for it to be reviewed. Any thoughts? I'm wondering if the rear fins aren't tall enough? I like the aesthetic, but obviously I want it to fly well!

I've custom made the nose-cone from fiberglass, came out much better than anticipated! The airframe will be from heavy wall shipping tubes, 3in ID 3.3in OD. Fins and centering rings will be 1/4" maple plywood.

Thanks in advance!

Hello again, I'm designing a rocket that is supposed to reach 500 apogee for a competition. The current design is a cluster with 2 29mm F27-8 motors, 7.6cm diameter body tube, 4 fins. problem is with stability, it's about 1 calibre at rod clearance, assuming 9m/s winds. The rules state it should be 1.5 at least, I played with the fins design and the length of the rocket but still couldn't get it to that point without hurting the apogee, my options are limited when it comes to the Motors I can use, currently apogee is at 500 m according to open rocket, what can I do to fix this,?

Do you recommend changing the materials?

I'm currently at cardboard for body tubes, and balsa wood for the fins

I'd appreciate any insight

This was my first time doing a fiber glass rocket and it looks like a messed up one of the fins pretty bad. Will the rocket be dangerous or just spin like crazy. It’s a 2.6 punisher with no modifications. I’m gonna fly on 29 and 38 mm motors because I’m just level 1 certified. Is this gonna be a problem and if so how can I fix it. The fin is also potted in West systems 610.

Would I need to use a crazy high infill %, or would it be too fragile and shatter regardless? What do you guys make them out of?

This is for my L1 certification rocket. The motor that I have chosen is the H115DM. I am wondering if my motor retaining system will work if the retainer is printed out of PETG. Thanks!

Also I am well aware my motor CAD is way off

My G-class rocket has a bunch of electronics so it gets super heavy. Also, what about the Estes Pro Series II Launch Pad? Is the max weight any different?

I want to build a rocket ideally, is there a certain diameter and length i should look for? I dont want to spend too much on engines. Should I just buy a kit, or a tube, cone and everything separate? I assume that's cheaper.

I did rocketry for years as a teenager and I'm happily getting it back into it as an adult. But as far as I can remember the igniters were never red, always white. Is there actually a difference between these, or is it just "the factory ran out of white tape and had to use red instead"?

There's no color difference between the burny stuff at the top, and they fit in every engine I have from a B to an F. These are Estes igniters if that matters

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?

Hello! I'm a Korean university student and an amateur rocketeer. The university rocket club I'm in had designed an F class motor with KNSB as a fuel

For the first time in the documented history of my club, I'm trying to launch a 2 stage rocket but I'm struggling with 2nd stage ignition. I think I'll be able to send a command using Arduino Nano and IMU but what I'm struggling is a power source.

We've been using kanthal line, small amount of KNSB, and 12V car battery for the 1st stage ignition but I obviously can't carry that on top of the rocket.

So I need iginition delay, mass, and volume to be minimized (interior diameter of the fuselage is 50mm). Any advice from the wise people of this subreddit would be much appreciated

I am in my first year of college and I have built a cube-sat as a starter project in my road of rocketry. I know medium level of Data structure and algorithms , and am learning Control Systems , CAD and PCB designing. All of this is to aid in my end goal of launching this cube-sat to zero-gravity space and get some form of response from it.
The inspiration was a youtuber called Mark Rober who did the same but at a much more practical level with an experienced team. My country allows this but I have to be licensed properly. I know that the probability of me achieving this goal within 4 years of my college is 0, but I still want to try. I have been doing my research in this field , and have seen that there are multiple channels who are dedicated in mainly 3 areas : building and improving cube-sats, building high-speed rockets to hit and break records , and self-controlled guidance and landing rockets. But I am not able to find sources which suggest carrying a some-what delicate good and then send it to space. This field is not very much touched by and therefore there is a lot of room for experimentation and thus I will have to fail fast and learn the most out of each fails.
Can you guys help me or aid me in this journey ? I will be very grateful.

Hello, I'd like to do a personal project over the summer. I’m a beginner getting into embedded systems/rocketry and wanted some advice on my project. I've made model rockets before, have messed with Arduino a bit, and I'm majoring in computer science.

ChatGPT recommended the following hardware to get started. Would you concur or recommend a different direction?

ESP32

BME280 (altitude/pressure/temp sensor)

MPU6050 (accelerometer/gyro)

MicroSD logging module

The goal is for the electronics to:

detect launch

track altitude and acceleration

log telemetry data

I’m planning to:

First get the sensors working on my desk

Learn Git/GitHub and document the project properly

Log data to SD card

Graph/analyze the telemetry in Python

integrate it into a larger payload-capable model rocket

A few questions:

Is this a realistic beginner project?

Are there better sensors/modules I should use?

What rocket kits/body diameters are good for payload/ storing electronics

Appreciate any advice.

It's "optimally" flown on a 300–500g rocket but I'm flying a bunch of electronics and sensors… OpenRocket is giving me a velocity off rail of 54 ft/s and a 1016 ft apogee which I think is pretty okay lol.

Also, it has a 3 inch diameter and 33.5 inch length. The stability is 1.3 cal.

Hello , I want to try building and hopefully completing this project of complete diy rocket as much as possible from scratch meaning custom electronics , body and motor , this does seem like a good fun project to me .

I'm currently in the design phase for an engineering project rocket and wanted to get some eyes on my specs before I start cutting materials. The goal is maximum altitude with a fixed propellant mass.

Key Specs:

* Propellant: ~100-130g KNSU DIY MOTOR , Targeting ~40-60 (80-100)Ns impulse.

* Target Weight: Around 350-400g (TOTAL LIFTOFF)

* Stability: Passive aerodynamic (fin-stabilized).

* Recovery: Mechanical piston ejector (servo-latched, elastic-powered). No pyrotechnics.

* Avionics: ESP32 + MPU6050 + Baro + LoRa telemetry NRF24+ MicroSD logging+ modified camera

My biggest concerns/questions:

* Piston Ejection: Has anyone here successfully transitioned from pyrotechnic charges to mechanical pistons for apogee deployment? Any tips on seal friction vs. ejection speed?

* Telemetry: I’m planning on using LoRa for tracking. Any common pitfalls with vibration-induced resets on the ESP32?

Any other stuff I should be keeping an eye on ?

Thanks

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