In a remarkable feat mirroring SpaceX’s trailblazing achievements, two rocket enthusiasts Joe Barnard and Aryan Kapoor have managed vertical landings at a much reduced scale.
These two spent years perfecting their craft and, in doing so, made what once seemed impossible without the sort of investment that SpaceX had a reality.
He is known in the community as BPS. Spending time equivalent to seven years on average, Joe Barnard is actively employed in model rocket building.
It is not aerospace engineering, but music production in the end, yet Barnard has developed proprietary components working around designing a thrust vectoring mechanism that keeps his rockets upright throughout their entire flight.
The mechanism uses servo motors to rotate the thrust of the rocket engine anywhere between five degrees in any direction, along with sensors and custom-made software, that ensures stability. Moreover, he is working out the procedure to control the thrust actively of solid-fuel rocket engines using some adjustable ceramic paddles for making very controlled landings.
Meanwhile, a high school student, Aryan Kapoor, under the handle JRD Propulsion has also been doing great work in the area. Kapoor began in August 2021, and after three years of development with numerous setbacks, he finally had a successful vertical landing.
Kapoor’s design is an all-new original not like Barnard’s scale replica of a SpaceX rocket.
His rocket uses a stack of two solid-propellant motors, one for liftoff and another for descent and landing. Kapoor’s model has dispensed altogether with the traditional stability fins and relies on thrust-vector controls using a 3D-printed gimbal mount to make fine adjustments during flight.
Kapoor’s rocket has a custom-tailored onboard computer array, inertial measurement unit, and barometric altimeter.
The climb to altitude is sensed by the altimeter, which sends instructions to the rocket’s computer on when it should switch from the first to the second motor.
Descent is controlled. Ingenious rigging of the legs of the rocket with reuse of syringes and rubber bands, all of which act as shock absorbers, absorbs the impact of landing.
Interestingly, the rocket stuck landing with an internal problem during ascent. It could not eject the first spent propellant stack. That added weight it did not intend to carry for the descent, meaning the rocket bounced just a technically stood twice: once on its way up and once on its way down.
It just brings out how the achievements by Barnard and Kapoor prove that model rocketry can innovate and be successful without having huge resources at one’s disposal, reflecting on the work done so far by SpaceX as it continues to motivate yet another generation of new proponents for the effort toward reaching the impossible.
They are among the closest-to-reality space pioneers in model rocketry, proving that with focus, resourcefulness, and perseverance, everything is possible.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches on its demonstration mission, liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Original from NASA. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.