Launches

Recent Launch 4/7/25

Aether V3.1's Qualifying Launch

[Flight results will not be posted as of right now] All our regional efforts boil down to today: qualifying. Laser-focused, the team prepared two rockets for qualifying and tested one, resulting in a near-perfect launch. With hopes high, the team moved on to our qualifying launches. The first launch proved a success as we were only a few feet off the desired altitude. Our next qualifying launch also proved promising; however, to the team's dismay, on our third launch, our lower body tube parachute failed to deploy, resulting in our third and final qualifying flight being disqualified. Horizon 0268's National future will rest on two very promising qualifying launches and the team will be looking on with eagerness for the results that will be posted in around a week.

Aether V3.1's Build

Recent Launch 4/5/25

Aether V3.1's Fourth Launch

[Flight Data will be uploaded shortly] Starting the day at approximately 5 A.M., the team enjoyed a roughly 2-hour road trip to Holtville, the location of our fourth and second-to-last regional launch. Today's launch placed an impressive record for our team in terms of launches, with the team launching 4 times without any rocket loss. This record demonstrates our team's expertise in the launching process, with each successive launch having a quicker turnaround time than the last. This launch was primarily for duration testing as not only was fixing our duration the primary goal moving forward, but also because the rough winds would not allow us to gain any valuable data altitude-wise. Our previous launches had significant durations that were not within the desired time limit. With testing at build parties, our team was able to narrow down our parachute to less than half its original diameter. With our first three launches, we saw massive improvements, cutting down our duration by almost half. Despite this, we were still a couple of seconds off. For our last launch, we decided to tighten our parachute even more and that gave us a brilliant and promising result to end off the launch day. The team is now concentrated on preparing for Monday, the team and Aether's most important regional launch: Qualifiers.

Aether V3.1's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark XI V3.1

Date and Time: 4/5/25; 9:07 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: -

Wind Speed: -

Performance

Altitude: -

Duration: -

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 2

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark X V3.1

Date and Time: 4/5/25; 9:30 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: -

Wind Speed: -

Performance

Altitude: -

Duration: -

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 3

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark IX V3.1

Date and Time: 3/23/25; 10:00 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: -

Wind Speed: -

Performance

Altitude: -

Duration: -

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 4

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark IX V3.1

Date and Time: 3/23/25; 11:00 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: -

Wind Speed: -

Performance

Altitude: -

Duration: -

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 3/22/25

Aether V3.1's Third Launch

Mark VIII's launch was a substantial improvement from our prior launch, with the rocket undershooting the altitude by around 34 feet. Although we are still not at our desired altitude, we are getting closer, and this proves that our ballast is working as intended in bringing the altitude of the rocket down. The team will focus on removing some ballast to ensure the rocket reaches the desired 790 feet. Despite this, no significant improvement came from the rocket's flight duration as the parachute's diameter was still big enough to create significant amounts of drag delaying the upper body tube from reaching the ground. Overall, the team is looking forward to our next and final experimental launch day, and will take what we have learned from all our launches into developing Mark IX.

Aether V3.1's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark VIII V3.1

Date and Time: 3/23/25; 9:15 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: 79.8 grams

Wind Speed: 2.0 mph

Performance

Altitude: 756 feet

Duration: 83 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 3/16/25

Aether V3.1's Second Launch

With qualification flights less than 4 launch days away, TWS went in with high hopes for this launch. Fortunately, Mark VII delivered, with our best performance altitude wise to date. Mark VII, a V3.1 rocket, had a near perfect launch of the launch rod, ascending straight with no visible slant to 842 feet. With this altitude, that puts us around 50 feet over our desired altitude of 790 feet, an almost twofold improvement from our last launch where we were 90 feet below target. We believe that our rail buttons, along with the wind being in our favor, were factors contributing to this successfull launch. There is still much work to do. The team will now look towards experminting with different parachute openings, as our flight duration is nearly twice what is allotted, as well as solving issues related to the lower half of the rocket, which has now 3 times plummeted to the ground with no parachute opening. In conclusion, this launch serves as a beacon of hope for what is to come, and gives the team some much needed motivation to push for these last few weeks of the ARC competition.

Aether V3.1's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark VII V3.1

Date and Time: 3/16/25; 9:30 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: 79.4 grams

Wind Speed: 2.5 mph

Performance

Altitude: 842 feet

Duration: 83 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 2/22/25

Aether V3.1's First Launch

Getting closer with each launch, Aether V3.1 shows the most promising results so far in terms of altitude, reaching 702 feet, around 90 feet shy of our target, but the closest we have been all season. Given the attention to detail in the manufacturing of this rocket, we were relieved to see some performance come out of our hard work, especially after numerous data-filled but fruitless launches in the past. The rocket's flight has also been improved with a smooth flight path and no corkscrewing visible, unlike our last launch. Despite this, our rocket continues to have issues coming off the launch rod, immediately veering to a direction and messing up the rocket's trajectory. It is a problem that only involves the first second of the launch but accounts for a vast difference in terms of performance. Our next launch is in a few weeks so we will be conducting several reviews and analyses of the rocket to identify what improvements we can make. We may start 3D printing our launch lugs but this has not been confirmed yet. We attempted a 2nd launch to fix our trajectory issue with a much weaker motor, which caused our rocket to veer heavily off course, and resulted in the lower body tube impacting the ground. Overall we will take our success and lessons learned from this launch, and implement them into our next rocket.

Aether V3.1's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark VI V3.1

Date and Time: 2/22/25; 9:30 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: 78.8 grams

Wind Speed: 2.0 mph

Performance

Altitude: 702 feet

Duration: 69 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 2

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark VI V3.1

Date and Time: 2/22/25; 10:45 A.M.

Motor Type: F20-7W

Motor Weight: 85.8 grams

Wind Speed: 5-6 mph

Performance

Altitude: 490 feet

Duration: 54 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 2/8/25

Aether V3's First Launch

Improving on our last launch, although not by much, we were able to successfully solve the issues surrounding the parachute knots that caused our V2 rocket to plummet to the ground, ultimately breaking apart. With this improvement, we were able to identify another significant problem, which is our transitioner, or the part between the different-sized diameter body tubes. Both body tubes were cut with inaccurate methods, leading to our lower body tube not resting flush with the lip of our transitioner. What this meant is that the upper body tube wobbled back and forth when not stationary. Combined with the top-heavy nature of the rocket, our rocket was prone to corkscrewing due to an imbalance of forces, caused by the transitioner, leading the center of pressure and gravity to be misaligned when in flight. With a fix not attainable at the launch site, we decided to scrub our second planned launch, in hopes that we will succeed with a better design and method for cutting body tubes next launch. Fortunately, we will be having consecutive launches for the next 2 weeks, so launch excitement is guaranteed for the rest of the month!

Aether V3's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark V V3

Date and Time: 2/8/25; 9:15 A.M.

Motor Type: F42-4T

Motor Weight: 78.8 grams

Wind Speed: 5 mph

Performance

Altitude: 597 feet

Duration: 28 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 1/19/25

Aether V2's First Launch

It was an eventful day for both our team and the Rockets, although not in the ways we may have preferred. Mark III and Mark IV V2 severely underperformed and no data was collected, meaning design updates are impossible. Two major problems hampered the launch of both rockets: the motor and the shock cord. Starting with the motor which seemed to be thrust-vectoring in the left direction, the opposite direction of the wind. We attribute this mishap not to the rocket but to the motor which seemed to be slanted in one direction according to several guides. We hope to fix this by switching motor brands. However, the motor isn't the primary concern as long as the shock cord fails. On both launch attempts, both body tubes and their respective parachutes came out cleanly, but our upper body tube's shock cord snapped resulting in the upper body tube nosediving with each launch. With our second launch, the upper body tube crash-landed on harsh terrain, leading to our first partial loss of a rocket. Overall, it was a disappointing day for our team, but nonetheless one that will lead to improvements both in our launch logistics and rockets.

Aether V2's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark IV V2

Date and Time: 1/19/25; 8:30 A.M.

Motor Type: F20-7W

Motor Weight: 85.8 grams

Wind Speed: 1.5 mph

Performance

Altitude: ---

Duration: ---

Egg Condition: Broken

Launch 2

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark III V2;

(Lower body tube: Aether Mark IV V2)

Date and Time: 1/19/25; 11:00 A.M.

Motor Type: F20-7W

Motor Weight: 85.8 grams

Wind Speed: 3.1 mph

Performance

Altitude: N/A

Duration: N/A

Egg Condition: N/A

Launch 11/23/24

Aether's First Launch

Success! Aether's first launch proved to be spectacular and provided hope for our team to have greater success with each coming launch. While there is still much to work on, our 3 launches conducted proved far better than last year's Orion class rockets. Here's the breakdown:

Aether's Build

Launch 1

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark I

Date and Time: 11/23/24; 10:01 A.M.

Motor Type: F44-4W

Motor Weight: 49.6 grams

Wind Speed: 5.6 mph

Performance

Altitude: 623 feet

Duration: 86 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 2

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark I

Date and Time: 11/23/24; 10:40 A.M.

Motor Type: F44-4W

Motor Weight: 49.6 grams

Wind Speed: 3.2 mph

Performance

Altitude: 900 feet

Duration: 45 seconds

Egg Condition: Intact

Launch 3

Prelaunch

Rocket: Aether Mark I

Date and Time: 11/23/24; 11:05 A.M.

Motor Type: F44-4W

Motor Weight: 49.6 grams

Wind Speed: 8.1 mph

Performance

Altitude: ---

Duration: ---

Egg Condition: Intact

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