Sorbitol-KNO3 Composite Rocket

Three-inch diameter kit consisting of a filament-wound body tube and Von Karman nose cone as well as G10 ​fins.

It has a dual-deploy recovery system, releasing a small drogue parachute at apogee and the big main chute at the chosen altitude using a barometer-based altimeter.  

The rocket also has a 54mm motor mount, a standard size for consumer sport rockets, and will fly on anything from an H class motor to L. As this rocket is comparably small to the size of motors it’s designed to use, extra measures have been taken to reinforce the rocket at supersonic speeds. The most important of these is the use of both internal injected fillets and large external fillets. Holes were drilled in the

Holes were drilled in the body tube and epoxy was injected into the junction between the fin and the motor mount. More flexible epoxy was used to apply the external fillets to maintain a balance between brittle and floppy fins. Now completed, the fins are 

strong enough to withstand a person standing on top of the body tube. The rocket is ready to be lauanched once tests on the propellants are complete (see thrust test stand page) and a launch site is determined. The plot above contains altitude, acceleration, and drift data from ignition to its return.