Rocket Launch Explosion

The failed launch of my first high-power rocket.

After the launch, I found out that the o-rings in motor burned through, and hot gasses shot up through my rocket. This not only set fire to the lower half, but ignited the explosive charge that was supposed to deploy my parachutes, causing the nose cone to pop off just after launch.

Fortunately, the upper half, including the nose cone, payload bay, and parachute, survived and floated to the ground about 300 yards away. Had the rocket not exploded, it probably would've floated far away into the nearby forrest, and I wouldn't have recovered anything.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• rocket
• launch
• cato
• explosion
• fire

[FOAD911]

actually,looking at the rocket in that video,you can see the fault on the body.Its never should have been launched in that condition.

[zanhecht]

Actually, no, the body was perfectly fine. The ejection charge, which is supposed to separate the two halves of the rocket, fired early due to a bad o-ring in the motor. The rocket came apart exactly where it was supposed to, it just did it about 30 seconds too early.

[minga86]

nice camera work. how large was the motor?

[zanhecht]

It was a reloadable H (H80 IIRC).

[gorillagirlgorilla]

I think the maker used a really powerful motor while having a week frame.

The rocket noze opened taking the parashute out and that caused the rocet to spin and just crumble.

Next time choose a tougher frame and balance it before hand.

Nice motor though.

[zanhecht]

No, the frame was perfectly strong enough for the motor. In fact, the frame can take a motor twice as powerful. In fact, the next person to lauch had the exact same frame and the exact same motor, and he was sucessful.

As I posted in the description, the motor itself exploded.

[FantasticBob7000]

NASA will never recover from this.

[dkthemovie]

0:55 - deforestation

[jmar1371]

I hate when that happens!

[GoRideaMTN]

the barneys breakfast bars do give me explosive gas

[jmar1371]

An ignoramous might, but those of us with an education... We don't have the foggiest WTF you're babbling about.

You might consider cutting back on the Barney's Breakfast Bar.

[jmar1371]

An ignoramous might, but those of us with an education... We don't have the foggiest WTF you're babbling about.

You might consider cutting back on the Barney's Breakfast Bar.

[GoRideaMTN]

well pardon my french, but you're quite the rough customer! Any ignoramus would know that i was referring to the aft closure in the foward portion of the hybridized dual compression-controlled expansion chambers. and furthermore the brilliant heisenberg compensator is commonly located on the starbord side to cross balance the weight of the vaporizer pump on the port. well i say, ... Mr. fancy level three.. GoBuyaHeisenbergCompensator!

[jmar1371]

He used what.

[jmar1371]

The forward aft closure? Is that the one in front of the back, or in back of the front? Or is it to one side of the middle?

And exactly where does the Heisenberg compensator mount in that solid propellant motor?

Hey GoRideaMTN... GoReadaBOOK.

[GoRideaMTN]

nice stills, and jmar, it was the foward aft closure which had failed, the heisenberg compensator thus released the h2o2 gas, overwhelming the pressure servos which in turn ignited the propellant, producing this spectacular splendor..