Category Archive: News

What's going on at the Kerbal Space Agency

May 20 2019

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 11 Analysis

Categories:

News

While there are several instruments that still await testing for our future Extremis probes (and other Kerbin orbital missions) one of them, the hemispherical ion trap, is small enough to fit on the payload truss of a Mk6. Originally designed to study charged particles from the kerbolar wind, similar charged particles (also from the wind) are trapped inside the radiation belts that surround our planet. With ample experience in exploring the inner radiation belt, the Progenitor team was able to put together a mission that launched last week which would allow for the instrument to be exposed directly to space and gather data that could be used to not only further study the environment inside the belt but better tweak the instrument for use during deep space exploration.

The Flight

No delays led to an on-time launch, followed by a nominal ascent. The rocket’s center of mass was shifted ever so slightly to the rear since the truss carrying the extra batteries and the truss carrying the payload were switched from their normal positions. This did not have any adverse affect on the rocket’s flight. All stages were separated without issue and during the final burn, after passing 45km, the top fairing halves were jettisoned to expose the test instrument – this is the first time we have detached a payload fairing while under powered flight and it did not quite go as planned.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

Jul 25 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 6 Analysis

Categories:

News

Another flight was put together to further explore the properties of the hazardous radiation region found above our planet. All previous launches had occurred sometime during the daylight hours while this flight was scheduled to occur during the middle of the night. Scientists had several theories regarding why the radiation data from this sub-orbital trajectory would be different, but we will address them in a later report once they have finished working through the new data as well as the old. Here we will focus solely on the performance of the rocket during the mission.

The Flight

No delays led up to an on time launch last Friday at precisely 16:51:00.04 local time when the lower 0.625m solid fuel booster lit off to push the rocket off the launch base. Ascent through to booster engine cutoff for the third stage liquid fuel engine was nominal compared to past launches, showing no significant deviation from event times or in the rocket’s angle of attack while spinning to stay stabilized. The rocket entered space 1m28s after launch, just 10ms after BECO. It maintained proper orientation throughout the 9 minute climb to 522.368km apokee and all the way back down to atmospheric interface at L+19m56s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

May 31 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 5 Analysis

Categories:

News

After sending 4 rockets on southward trajectories to see if we could find an end to the hazardous radiation region discovered ~350km above the planet, the final flight in that series recorded no radiation increase above the baseline 0.01rad/hr found outside the atmosphere. To determine whether the same could be said north of the equator, this flight sent up earlier in the week was planned to mirror the third launch of the Mk6 Block I that found an increase, but not to peak levels of 10rad/hr. If we could record similar measurements on this flight, we could determine the field is fairly uniform around the equator, otherwise we could find significantly more or less to tell us the field is asymmetrical.

The Flight

Because the rocket needed to launch northwards, the launch base had to be moved out into the field north of the runway so the rocket would not risk damaging the new service towers constructed on the launch pad for Ascension rockets. This presented some issues that slightly delayed the launch as cables run out that far to carry power and data were not able to handle the distance initially, and relays/repeaters had to be installed. Although we’ve had rockets launch from this area before, the power requirements of the Progeny Mk2.1 were much less and no data was needed other than a simple electrical signal to trigger the launch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,

May 11 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 4 Analysis

Categories:

News

The final launch in our latest campaign has been to space and back. This ends our initial exploration of the hazardous radiation zone discovered above the planet, a report on which will be published separately after more data collection and analysis from future Progeny launches. We’ll cover that at the end as usual, for now let’s take a look at this recent flight in detail.

The Flight

Once again the only major change to the ascent profile of the rocket was to launch even further to the south, lifting off from the launch base at precisely 09:02:00.06 local time to head 150° SSE after a delay due to low cloud cover. 67.2kN of thrust from the lower 0.625m booster pushed the rocket at 4Gs and climbed to 68.9kN before beginning to taper off after just 3 seconds to ensure the rocket did not speed through MaxQ too fast, topping out with a dynamic pressure of 77.104kPa passing through 5km traveling at 550m/s at L+18s. Staging occurred at L+35s, 14.9km ASL, after the lower booster expired and was pushed away by the decoupler, its fins shredding via det-cord 1 second later to spoil its lift and send it crashing downrange into the Kerblantic .

Coasting for 7.62 seconds before the nose fell 1.5°, the AFCS kicked off the second stage booster at 18.5km to boost at 14.7kN with a TWR of 3.1. Trajectory remained stable throughout the burn until the booster expired at L+54s, when the stage was dumped and the third booster ignited one second later at full thrust to continue the push for space.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,

May 04 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 3 Analysis

Categories:

News

In our continued quest to explore the region of high radiation found above our planet the third launch of the Progeny Mk6 Block I was carried out earlier this week.

The Flight

The initial launch time of 18:18 UTC was missed due to wind shear in the upper atmosphere that would have hit the rocket during its unpowered coast stage after dropping the first booster. A second weather balloon was sent up and returned nominal wind readings for a launch at 19:35 UTC. The rocket flew off the pad heading 135° ESE with an initial force of 67.2kN for 4Gs of acceleration to prevent drag at the nose from flipping the rocket over during this early flight phase. After only three seconds the lower 0.625m booster had reached its maximum thrust output of 68.9kN before beginning to fall off and prevent the rocket from exceeding 80kPa of dynamic pressure. At L+17.9 seconds the rocket reached a MaxQ of 76.318kPa at an altitude of 4.958km ASL as the lower booster continued to tail off thrust until flame-out at L+33.7 seconds. Now at 14.070km the Automated Flight Control System staged the booster after one second, cleanly pushing it away so when its fins were exploded a second later the debris did not damage the rocket, which continued to coast upwards for another 6.9 seconds before the nose fell 1.5° and the second stage booster was ignited at 18.601km.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

May 01 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 2 Analysis

Categories:

News

Prevented from launching for over two months due to legal and political wrangling the second flight of the Progeny Mk6 was finally able to head up into space and also successfully made it back to the surface intact for recovery thanks to some new tech that reached maturity during the delay. This was the third launch in a series of flights designed to probe out the region of hazardous radiation originally detected above the planet by earlier Progeny Mk5 flights. We have theories on what might be up there, but only hard data will tell us what actually exists. Thanks to the success of this flight we are a step closer to knowing, with two more planned to hopefully complete our initial understanding.

The Flight

Despite the long break between launches regular drills kept everyone ready to resume operations and no troubles arose during the operations leading up to the launch, which occurred on schedule after high surface winds earlier in the day died down to acceptable levels. The Automated Flight Control System fired off the first stage 0.625m booster at precisely 13:58:00.05 local time, which pushed the rocket off the launch base with an initial thrust of 67.2kN for 4Gs of acceleration on a heading of 120°. This force was enough to keep drag at the nose from pitching up the rocket any more than 1.5° before the fins began to spin up and stabilize the remainder of the flight. The lower booster’s thrust peaked at 68.9kN just 3.6 seconds into the flight before the solid fuel core design began a thrust reduction to keep the vehicle’s speed under control as it passed through MaxQ at L+17.9 seconds traveling at 504.53m/s with a dynamic pressure of 77.987kPa. The first stage burned out after 33.67 seconds of powered flight and separated cleanly one second later. A second after that the fins were shredded with explosives to spoil the booster’s aerodynamics and send it plummeting towards the Kerblantic, where it impacted 19km downrange at L+3m9s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

Feb 19 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 1 Analysis

Categories:

News

Given that the first flight of the Mk6 Block I contained only slight tweaks from the previous Mk5 Block I flight of the same design problems were not expected and none occurred. Sadly, the rocket failed to be recovered and deprived the engineering team of high-resolution data stored onboard but we still have the 1-second interval telemetry beamed back during flight available here for review. As usual we will detail the flight and then dive into some analysis and future planning.

The Flight

Great weather on launch day and no issues during pre-flight operations allowed the rocket to liftoff on schedule, with the Automated Flight Control System igniting the lower 0.625m solid rocket booster at precisely 16:01:00.04 local time. The booster pushed the rocket off the launch base with an initial thrust of 67.2kN for 4Gs of acceleration to keep the nose from rising more than 2° before the lower fins began to spin up the rocket. Launching from a heading of 105° the rocket began its trek east-southeast slightly out of alignment with the rotation of Kerbin. After 5 seconds the booster’s thrust profile began to reduce power as the rocket approached MaxQ, which it reached at 17.84s at a pressure of 79.139kPa – closest so far to the maximum 80kPa threshold to which we are trying to restrain the Progeny ascents. At 33.66s the booster had expended all its fuel and was cleanly decoupled one second later, with its fins shredding a second after that as the rest of the rocket continued its ascent in a coast phase, waiting for the nose to drop 1.5°.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,