Onboard Xombie rocket video, engage the air brake - 2010.03.20

The view from a camera near the control bunker and two onboard cameras. Masten Space Systems XA-0.1B-750 rocket, aka Xombie, flies to over 1000 feet before coming down and landing almost exactly where it took off from.

The rocket flies completely autonomously, using differential GPS and a six-axis inertial measurement unit. We click go on a laptop, and it flies itself. Runs on isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen, about as forgiving as you can get in rocket propellants. You could stick your hand in either.

http://www.masten-space.com/

"air brake" is a reference to Loony Tunes, where whenever you need to stop in mid air, you just turn on the air brake. The rocket doesn't actully have air brakes, it's all rocket thrust

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• masten
• space
• xombie
• zombie
• rocket
• onboard
• split
• screen
• thrust
• altitude
• alcohol
• woo
• yeah

[scasey1960]

Great video!

[bbrockert]

Thanks, Sean.

[blah979]

Wow awesome video. That was really cool the way you put 3 different views together and also liked the way you used high def video. A lot of vids like this are not to clear. Hope you show other stuff your doing in the future.

[predatortheme]

@bbrockert Thank you for the answers. What would you recommend to study/learn To get the knowledge of rocketengineering ?

[bbrockert]

@predatortheme I went to school for computer engineering, but dropped out. The CEO was a dropout as well. The propulsion guy was Manufacturing Engineering, the GNC guy was AeroE from MIT. It's a different company now, though, almost none of the same employees as during this flight.

[predatortheme]

@bbrockert Wow I love that. What Did you guys Study to get the knowledge about rocket engineering? Aerospace engineer?

[sparkybluefox]

This is among the best rocket video's that I've ever seen! In fact.. I've NEVER seen anything like this!

Bravo!

SBF

[mrplease66]

This clearly is a great piece of kit, and it seems to work extremely well, but I would like to know what the eventual aim is? It would never reach orbital velocities, so what do you intend to do with it? Sample returns?

[gaynorglowellxsingh]

how long is it's flight time and how high will it go?

[ambruskis]

Nice job!

[ianmga]

@robotguy It's a combination of things. High gain on the velocity controller (what ben describes as twitchy) combined with underdamping. Good catch.

[dhrjani]

nice work