Super cool project for a high schooler, ridiculous amount of skills shown. Highly recommend Joe Barnard's (BPS.space on Youtube) videos on this topic if you're interested. He was the first one to really do this project successfully, and had a pretty much identical design to what is in this article. His videos are super informative on the topic, and he has a plethora of other rocketry videos now, including custom motors and significantly larger scale rockets.
I’m curious why there’s no mention in the article of Joe Barnard’s efforts at bps.space which are “prior art” in this problem domain (landing a model rocket using TVC).
I wonder why these human inventions seemed to have happened in reverse order?
Normally, you'd expect someone to land a small or medium sized prototype rocket before the big real thing. Instead, SpaceX solved the vertical rocket landing problem for a full-size rocket at incredible cost and difficulty, and now a hobbyist copies the idea and scales it down.
I might be missing something here. Maybe someone solved the problem of vertical landing for less-than-full-size rockets before SpaceX? Maybe there's no value in solving that problem, so SpaceX jumped to full size right away?
Model rockets work with solid rocket motors which have a very different (and once you light them uncontrollable) performance than liquid rocket motors where you can throttle them.
> and now a hobbyist copies the idea and scales it down.
The rocket is still working with solid rocket motors. This isn't scaled down - it is an entirely different technology based on precalculated motor performance and altitude sensors.
If you could get the space shuttle solid rocket boosters to land, that would be comparable.
As others have mentioned, there have been several rockets of various sizes that have done vertical landing.
What SpaceX solved was the requirements to do it economically while keeping the booster cheap enough to both initially build and then later refurbish for reflight. Even when not reused, a Falcon 9 is cheaper than the rockets of its generation. SpaceX also did self-landing tests with a grasshopper vehicle prior to working on F9 landings.
On top of that, this kind of hobby rocketry is very divorced from 'real' rocketry in most ways. The closest analogue to this kind of propulsive landing approach would probably be how Soyuz uses some small rockets that fire right before the capsule touches down to soften the impact, or similarly with New Shepard but instead using cold gas thrusters.
Doing it at this scale is really not that applicable to doing it well in terms of reusing a rocket stage at an orbital rocketry scale. Most of the challenges of landing that are in all the things a model rocket typically does not have. Not to discount the work though, the problem solving experience is certainly transferable.
eh, some things get harder as you miniaturize. computers used to be the size of rooms.
i would imagine that for the (profitable) problem space the value is in heavier payloads, so that's what makes sense to target first. and FWIW the SpaceX rockets have gotten bigger over time: https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/F9-FH-B...
I hear there's another guy who's going to try to catch his rocket booster vertically in a pair of over sized chopsticks. It seems unlikely but I'm rooting for him. If it doesn't work out he should try to hire this high schooler to help.
Really nice work. Well described and I love the number of clever solves. The syringe based landing gear is just marvelous. I imagine trying to build his own simple motors might be next. Also curious if he will start trying to use some sort of range finder to get accurate altitude during the landing phase. Just makes me happy to see someone his age so engaged already in excellent engineering.
The only "rules" preventing that is the Model Rocketry Association's Safety Codes, which is the same thing as the Comics Code Authority making sure there's no boobs in a comic book.
There are several hundred examples of people building rockets made out of metal on YouTube.
Only because there's an agreement between propellant vendors and NAR/Tripoli who want to police what you do (commercial organizations) - no statute exists prohibiting these activities (besides possibly ITAR and friends - which don't prohibit most domestic applications of this tech.)
Motors and batteries are available from a very large number of suppliers and used for many other applications - no such single chokepoint exists to control drone users/manufacturers.
There is no rule against a metal rocket per se. However, if you're going to go more than a few hundred feet up you enter the realm of the FAA--and you're a very badly behaved aircraft.
If you want to fly in their realm you either keep your craft light enough and soft enough that should you end up occupying the same bit of air as an airplane that you're not going to bring it down or you have to work with them. Since you can't be trusted not to run into things the only way to do it safely is to fire into an exclusion zone. The high power rocketry guys operate facilities out in the middle of nowhere and with scheduled launch days and a NOTAM will be issued keeping airplanes out of the space (middle of nowhere so the closed airspace is as minimally disruptive as possible.) The rocket guys are responsible for ensuring no rocket-on-rocket hits. Obviously, the FAA isn't going to be interested in handing out more of those exclusion zones than are actually needed, you want to send up amateur stuff, you work with the system.
https://www.youtube.com/@BPSspace has a video on this exact topic, but can't seem to find it. I pretty sure he mentioned that there is a publicly open book on guidance and navigation.
The biggest factor is probably having sufficiently supportive parents. Especially on dealing with potential safety hazards like the fuel. At that age my parents didn't even trust me to use a soldering iron without guidance (it wasn't justified).
Note what he said about the ascent engine failing to eject. That means he's using standard professionally manufactured hobby rocket motors. (Which, realistically, is all that most people legally can do. The bigger stuff is subject to a lot of hazardous materials regulations that range from burdensome to completely impossible depending on how much space you have.)
Ah I see, I had heard about people filling motors themselves and figured that was normal with hobby motors. That certainly makes it much easier for teens to get into it.
I believe there are now other players in this market.
Looking at his website I see the gimbal being described as supporting up to 24mm engines. That corresponds to a standard D size engine and by my long-ago memory that burn looked reasonable for a D motor except the rocket was way too heavy for a safe launch (normal rockets rely on fins, they must get going fast enough while still riding the launch rail that they'll stay straight)--I'm sure he was staying well back!
The landing burn seemed weaker--I wouldn't be surprised if that was a C, or perhaps even a high thrust B.
