Charlie Horse Flight 9

Flight #9 was conducted at the Lucerne Dry Lake launch site. A Go Pro camera was set up to take video beside the launch pad. The first attempt at a launch burned the igniter without starting the motor, which was recorded by the Go Pro. Unfortunately there was a malfunction when starting the camera for the second, successful launch attempt so no pad-side footage was recorded of the launch. The only recorded video came from the onboard camera, because I was using my cell phone to test out the newly installed GPS tracker.

The payload bay carried a Charlie Brown figurine that has flown on every flight, a Stratologger CF dual deployment flight computer, and was the first flight with the Eggfinder TX GPS Transmitter onboard. The GPS signal is sent from the rocket to the RX Receiver module, which is housed in a 3D printed box which I designed and printed. The tracker was a success, but there are several improvements that were identified, particularly with the printed RX receiver module box.

The flight was a partial success. The Eggfinder TX transmitter came loose from the mounting and sheared the nylon mounting screws, which likely happened when the rocket landed. In addition, one connection between the top and bottom sections of the rocket was missed during assembly and prep. This means that the lower half of the rocket remained connected to the drouge parachute which deployed at apogee and the upper, nose cone section (which houses the flight computer) tumbled back until main parachute deployment at 700 ft above ground level. This can be seen in the data plot by comparing the steep slope of the altitude line and squiggley-ness of the velocity line between the drouge & main deployments compared to a nominal flight.