Demise of Martian Sunrise
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008Joseph and I built an Aerotech Arreaux. He painted it and I named it Martian Sunrise. We took it to Santa Fe Dam to fly it at the SCRA launch. I loaded an E15-7W engine, and the LCO gave a countdown and pressed the button. It fizzled. The igniter popped but didn’t start the engine, probably because I hadn’t attached it securely enough. We tried again and up it flew. And then it continued on a ballistic trajectory back to the Earth. The flight ended after 13 seconds with the nose cone embedded 6 inches into packed dirt. The airframe was shredded. We cleaned up the crash site and flew another rocket before we headed home. Joseph’s beautiful paint job is gone, but the rocket will fly again after I get some replacement body tubes and a new nose cone. See photos and a video at the photo album.
