Monday, July 12, 2010

Mod free flight with drogue chute and engine relight



The first flight of a Mod I'd ever seen in person, within a week of starting work at Armadillo Aerospace.

Here the drogue chute was attached to four points, which increased the stability of the system as it was falling with the engine off. It turned out that the four point harness was also enough to keep the drogue inflated after it was disconnected from the vehicle, which made it float downrange in the breeze, all the way back to the Armadillo shop.

Monday, July 5, 2010



This was a flight just before I arrived at Armadillo, testing an actuated roll control vane to put roll torques on the vehicle as it flies.

The vane is shown in part of the video, the camera is looking straight up and the vane is actuated back and forth by the rocket's computer.