Vehicle 57

First flight of Vehicle 57 Mimas, powered by an Aerotech E30-4T composite motor. The rocket carried a Transolve Ultra-Beep sonic beacon.

After an initial misfire upon ignition, the ascent portion of the flight was perfect. But upon parachute ejection, the payload section separated due to an attachment point failure. The main section of the rocket was recovered intact, the payload section and payload were found with some damage, and the nose cone was lost. Vehicle 57 was later fully repaired and still exists to this day.

Vehicle 57 measured 1070 mm in length and 56 mm to 42 mm in diameter, at a weight (without motor) of 131 grams. It was built in April and May of 1986, from Centuri, Estes, and Flight Systems parts.

Photos by Erol Ünala (top) and Daniel Zingg (bottom), northeast Switzerland, June 17, 1999.

Vehicle 96

Vehicle 96 E, the final iteration of a minimum diameter, maximum performance design, photographed at my workshop in November of 1999. At a length of 620 mm (including a payload section measuring 185 mm) and a diameter of 31.2 mm, vehicle 96 E was designed to fly under the power of either an Aerotech G25-15W or G125-15T motor, carrying a Transolve P 1 altimeter and a piezo sonic locator.

Based on the smaller Vehicle 99 H Supersonic 36 design, Vehicle 96 E was constructed using mainly LOC/Precision parts and a Rogue Aerospace nylon/Kevlar recovery system, and it featured three through-the-fin epoxy "rivets" per fin. The rocket featured no launch lug, requiring launch from a tower launcher.