ROC July 2003

After almost two years in hibernation, the Laser/LOC made a great showing for its next flight. I had an I65W sitting around from June of 2001 that just wanted to be burned, and there is no better rocket for one than a minimum diameter vehicle. So we stuck it in this rocket. I rigged up the RRC2 for dual deploy, and we took it out to the pad early. I inserted the QuikBurst igniter and armed the altimeter. All was good to go and after a couple photos, we stepped back and let the LCO hit the button. The motor came up to pressure in about 2 seconds, and then the rocket made a slow ascent. It kept going and going and going. After burnout, we lost track of it. I had sent the darn thing into orbit. However, Rick Magee called out that it was down, and something was deployed. We recovered the rocket about a half mile from the flight line. Apparently, the RRC never fired the apogee charge, but did fire the main charge. Thanks to strong modular construction, there was no damage done to the rocket except for a MAJOR zipper in the replaceable main compartment. Unfortunately, we also lost the data, and as such we lost the altitude. I think it went about 10,000 feet. That was COOOOOOL.