Lost Rocket SAR - Blackrock Desert (Sept. 26, 2010)

Jeff Jakob's rocket may never be found...

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[W7ENK]

@r0ck3tsm0k3 The parachute didn't deploy and it came down in a nose dive. We believe it burned for about 12 seconds (if I recall), and with the angle at which it took off, it's very likely that part of that burn was parallel to the ground, if not even downward, which means a lot of that energy was gained laterally, and wasn't negatively affected by gravity. Mach 2.4 is entirely plausible, especially when you factor a reported decent of 32,000 ft in 12 seconds... the math speaks for itself.

[r0ck3tsm0k3]

@W7ENK Doesn't mach 2.4 seem unlikely? The OuR rocket barely hit mach 1 and it was a very dense rocket (about 350 lbs empty.)

[W7ENK]

@mojaverockets 150K was indeed the intended altitude according to all the talk beforehand, only it shot off at about a 35 degree angle.

[W7ENK]

@mojaverockets Well, considering I was the person that took down the info over the radio from the guy who was watching the GPS receiver, then relayed that info directly on to Jeff and others on his team, and then I was one of four who went up in the search aircraft for two hours looking in that "small search area" of about 150 sq. miles, I think it's safe to assume I know what I'm talking about.

[mojaverockets]

@W7ENK

Are we talking about Jeff's rocket?

Never designed to be able to do 150,000', maybe 100,000' if lucky. And if we had "two good gps coordinates" at 42,000' and 10,000' on the way down spaced at 12 seconds apart we should be able to plot a small search area. like IDRocketeer points out and you should have been able to fly right over it. As I recall, none of those numbers you have are good..

[W7ENK]

@IdRocketeer That's what we did, but the rocket went about 150,000ft (~35 miles), so that search area was still rather large.

[IdRocketeer]

@IdRocketeer If you have GPS data, don't you have coordinates along with altitude? Seems you should be able to plot a trajectory and come up with a fairly small search area.

[IdRocketeer]

Mach 2.4? You're not looking for a rocket, you're looking for an impact crater and probably a fairly small one at that. Do you really expect there is anything worth recovering even if you do manage to find it? We hope to make it to Black Rock some day, but not this year.

[skyconqueror88]

That was awesome!!! so sad though :( hope you'll find it back. good luck mate!

[W7ENK]

@007longbeach Hahaha! Maybe? The plan was for 150,000 feet... up. The GPS data said we peaked out at roughly 70,000 feet (I think). The last 2 readings we got were at 42,000 feet and 10,000 feet - those were 12 seconds apart. That indicates that the rocket was descending at ~2,600 feet/second, or Mach 2.4 - Oops!

That, and there is an outside chance that because the rocket kicked to the side as it took off, we may have made that 150K feet, but laterally... that's 35 miles! Oops, again! :D