The Final Frontier

On May 30th, 2020, Spacex launched a Falcon 9 rocket for the Demo 2 mission, holding two humans. It was the first time the US had sent anyone into space since 2011, and the first commercial flight to reach the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule, mounted on top of the Falcon 9, docked with the ISS a day later, marking the first successful “All American” trip to the ISS in 9 years. That same day, however, another rocket launched off of the ground for the first time.

I have been into model rockets for a few years now, but I have finally gotten one in the air. I built my Alpha III Estes model rocket back in 2015, and when I first tried launching it, I found that all of my ignition systems were duds.

Cut to a few years later, and I’m now working on the Space Exploration Merit Badge, and my final requirement was to successfully launch a rocket twice, along with building one. I built the Estes Dark Zero with my friend over Zoom, but I was far from confident in that rocket’s capabilities. I went to launch my old Alpha III rocket a month later, and saying the launches were successful would be an understatement.

After 45 minutes of searching, my dad and I found a new neighborhood that had streets paved, but no houses. There was a small forest just south of us, and we had ponds both north and south. We found that the wind was blowing south, so I angled my launch pad slightly north. I soon found out once it got in the air that it wasn’t enough.

When a model rocket engine runs out of fuel, a small explosion is triggered, pushing out the nosecone, which deploys the parachute. Once the recovery system deploys, the rocket relies on the wind to get back down safely. For me, the wind just happened to be blowing into the nearby forest. The rocket descended past the treeline, and I thought this was it for that rocket, but my dad noticed a clearing in the forest. We put on our bright yellow safety vests, and ran to the clearing. Not only was the rocket right there, it somehow landed right side up, just like a Falcon 9 when it descends back to Earth.

Our second launch was nothing big, but we ended up landing it much closer to the pad. We immediately reset the rocket and placed it on the pad for launch. when I hit the big red button, however, it didn’t launch. I tried again, with no result. We checked, and it turned out that the metal ends of the remote’s clips touched the pad. This caused the current from the remote to divide between the ignition and the pad, so the igniter only burned halfway. The igniter didn’t ignite the engine, nor was it salvageable. Our third attempt was a dud.

Nearby, a house was hosting a pool party, and someone was playing “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, and I took it as a very bad omen. With great caution, I hit the ignition button on my remote, and the rocket went right up into the air, as per usual. on its decent, the rocket seemed to land in the pond north of us. I was extremely worried, but upon closer inspection, it landed less than a yard from the waterline. I was overjoyed that I had successfully carried out three launches with the same rocket on my first day.

So I would say I had a successful launch day. By the time the Dragon capsule’s back on Earth, I hope that I’ll already be sending several new ones up.