Armadillo flies higher

Armadillo Aerospace on Saturday flew the Mod vehicle to 200 m altitude with a "boosted hop". (Info via a couple of brief postings on the aRocket forum by Neil Milburn and John Carmack.) The boost hop means starting with high acceleration and then cutting the thrust to a low level so the vehicle follows a near ballistic trajectory.

John Carmack said they were able to get around the regulatory problems by finding a spot at the airport far enough from the road to satisfy their current waiver but didn't require any construction work.

He also said,

The next flight will be to 1000 feet, followed by 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000. Weather permitting, we will probably make these next week. Or a flaming crater.

Posted 10/25/09 | 17:23:39 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Transport Companies

Comments

Phil Eaton of Armadillo told me on Friday that while they had been scouting out spots far enough away from the road to fly higher, the recent rains had made the areas away from their LLC pads too soggy.

Evidently, it's dried up a bit...

Posted by Charles Lurio at 10/25/09 17:30:18

Finally, Armadillo's gonna get some serious sky time! Way to go, fellas! Light 'er up! Can't wait for you to get some black sky.

Posted by urth at 10/26/09 02:53:49

The area got dumped with rain last night. Wettest summer and fall that I can remember. Let's hope the rest of the week is better.

Posted by the other Doug at 10/26/09 09:32:17

This is great -- I'm glad to see Armadillo finally moving into new flight regimes for them.

Once they pass 10,302 ft., they'll have beaten the DC-X's altitude record -- which I believe is the current record altitude for a VTVL rocket?

Posted by Nathan at 10/26/09 10:13:31

Yes, though slightly less than the XCOR EZ-Rocket's peak altitude.

Posted by Mike Lorrey at 11/02/09 10:36:28

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