Final construction activities on the 6" glass fibre/carbon fibre N-motor rocket at what was then the machine shop of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, in September 2000.
Top photo shows the author of this blog (left) and Professor Eugene Trubowitz after the first full assembly of the still unpainted 6" (152 mm) rocket. The length of the rocket was 3000 mm. The design of the rocket provided for the integration of the Dr. Rocket N2000 98 mm aluminium motor case as a load-bearing structure. The release of the Rocketman drogue and main parachutes was to be guided by a BlackSky AltAcc recording accelerometer with dual deployment. The rocket was expected to exceed a speed of Mach 1.
Centre photo: the three rockets of the Balls 2000 N project assembled and displayed together for the first time. They were subsequently transported to an automotive paint shop we had contracted. Far left is the 4" glass fibre/carbon fibre/aluminium rocket, second is the 4" glass fibre/carbon fibre rocket, and far right is 6" glass fibre/carbon fibre rocket.
Bottom photo depicts concluding work on the freshly painted 6" rocket. Only the main body of the rocket was painted, the carbon fibre fins and carbon fibre/steel nose cone were deliberately left unpainted. In order to precisely drill the necessary mounting holes and access ports for the internal altimeter bay (to be installed last), the rocket has been temporarily wrapped with a large-scale, custom printed template.
All three rockets were shipped to the Black Rock Desert in late September of 2000. A number of circumstances during the preparation for the launch resulted in time constraints, however, limiting our team to only launching the two 4" vehicles of the project, while the 6" rocket remained unlaunched at the time.
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