Tag Archive: Block II

Jun 28 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block II Flight 1 Analysis

Since it was first announced back in October of 2017 (then designated the Mk5) the Block II has never been called upon for a mission due to the Block I out-performing all expectations and delivering sub-orbital payloads to the region of space above 250km that the Block II was originally designed for. After months of using Block I rockets to explore the hazardous radiation region above the planet, the need for higher flights has finally allowed the Block II the chance to prove its worth. The first mission was launched last week and once again the Progenitor team was blown away by the results.

The Flight

With no issues leading up to launch, the rocket lit off all 5 of its first stage solid rocket engines and left the launch base in a pillar of fire at 12:03:00.04 local time. This produced an initial combined force of 6.2Gs which, coupled with the added weight near the nose of extra batteries for the longer flight, prevented the greater length of the rocket compared to the Block I from creating too much drag at the nose and flip over to the west. In fact, the rocket immediately began to pitch downwards upon leaving the launch base, dropping from 85° launch position to 80° in the first 5 seconds. By this point the radial boosters had done their job aiding the center core booster in overcoming the additional 129kg of fuel and parts (not to mention the weight of the boosters themselves) added to the rocket design in the Block II. They separated, however two of the boosters caught the fins of the lower stage as the rocket began to spin up. Thankfully this did not have a hugely adverse effect on the ascent.

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Jun 25 2018

New Space Radiation Revelations

The first flight of the Progeny Mk6 Block II gave us some new insight into the region of hazardous radiation that has been found to hover above our planet. If you need a refresher, this article we posted earlier this year will get you up to speed. With the Block II finally being able to pass through and confirm that there is an upper boundary, it brings new context to the data gathered in the past and has brought us closer to understanding exactly what type of structure exists around Kerbin.

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Jun 22 2018

Operations Summary – Week of 6/18/18

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Jun 20 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block II Flight 1 (Radiation Field Study 6)

The debut flight of the powerful Block II version of the Mk6 sets out to see if its design proves capable of reaching space and possibly exploring a new region if it can pass through the hazardous radiation found above the planet

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Jun 15 2018

Operations Summary – Week of 6/11/18

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Jun 01 2018

Operations Summary – Week of 5/28/18

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May 31 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 5 Analysis

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.

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May 11 2018

Progeny Mk6 Block I Flight 4 Analysis

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.

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Nov 09 2017

Progeny Mk5 Block I Flight 2 Analysis

Last week’s launch was the first complete flight to space and back of our new Block I design, which primarily features more powerful first and second stage solid-fuel booster engines. Despite the incredible record-setting apokee of 493km and being able to recover the payload afterwards (barely), many problems became apparent that have needed to be addressed. In this report we will first cover the details of the flight, then look into solutions for the problems that occurred and finally talk about how we plan to move forward.

The Flight

After delays and a scrub of the initial launch time due to weather issues, the rocket was finally launched off the pad at 01:58:00.03 UTC under command of the Automated Flight Control System. The first stage solid fuel booster kicked in at 67.226kN of thrust to propel the rocket at an initial rate of 4Gs off the pad in order to put enough aerodynamic force into effect to keep the rocket’s nose from lifting too high. Beginning at 85° the nose of the rocket reached a maximum pitch of 86.935° at 2 seconds after launch, well-within limits. Burning fuel at a rate of 39.089kg per second, the 0.625m booster propelled the rocket up to 788.124m/s over the course of its 20.42 second burn, topping out at 76.422kN of thrust. The dynamic pressure at flame-out was 139.299kPa, by far the highest sustained so far by a complete stack of the Mk5. The booster was decoupled as planned 1 second after flame-out was detected, which is when the first flight anomaly occurred.

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Nov 01 2017

Progeny Mk5 Block I & II Launches Halted for Program Review

Although the second flight of the Mk5 Block I was an incredible success, reaching nearly 500km up into space (more than twice what we hoped for), it has also brought to light numerous issues that will need to be resolved. We consider ourselves to be extremely lucky in being able to recover this rocket & until we feel confident we can do it again we won’t be launching any more. This also extends to the more-powerful Block II variant, which is directly dependent on the success of the Block I. In addition to any technical and engineering issues, the very nature of the Mk5 program will need to be rethought now that we have an idea of just how powerful the newer boosters are. We planned for the Block I to service LKO & have trouble pushing payloads beyond 250km. The Block II was therefore the heavy-lift variant that would allow science data to be gathered beyond this distance.

Today the recovered third stage was carefully dismantled, large sections were fused together due to the heat from re-entry, but the data onboard was accessed and confirmed mostly intact, which still marks this as a successful flight. These next few days will be spent analyzing the telemetry and science data to aid in determining what our next steps will be. As the launch video released earlier shows, there were some problems during ascent that will need to be addressed.

Until we release our full report on the flight, the next Block I launch that was scheduled for 11/7 has been pushed back to no earlier than 11/22, while the Block II launch has been pushed back to no earlier than December. We very much hope to get at least one Block II off before the operational year ends on 12/15!

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