Journalist Report 04/26/2013 Nikolay Dzis-Voynarovskiy One idea emerges after discussions in our team. What about launching a model rocket at MDRS? There are no restrictions to buy and launch small rockets (less than 450 grams) in USA. Rocket start is a little but nice show. Besides, this idea has an interesting scientific component. We guess future Mars colonists will launch sounding rockets (as Earth scientists do) to take photos of surrounding area, take a measurement of Mars atmosphere and even for sending parcels between two distant Martian bases. That's why it is interesting to test this idea on the Earth in advance. There a lot of questions. For example, is it easy to visually track and find a landing rocket in Mars-like environment? Is it easy to launch a rocket on Mars in spacesuits? Alas, law restrictions and limited time prevent us from buying/building more powerful rocket. If you have not enough powerful engine, you cannot put a high-definition camera into a rocket. Therefore we took light-weighted videocamera from Russia with not so good quality picture (640*480 30fps). By the mistake we bought in Salt Lake City wrong rocket - even less than we planned initially. We planned to buy Estes Maxi Alpha III (http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/kits/skill-2/001903-maxi-alphar-3) but bought Estes Alpha III (http://www.estesrockets.com/001427-alpha-iiir-launch-set). Estes Alpha III is capable to take only altimeter on-board: http://www.jollylogic.com/products/altimeterone/ To take a camera above MDRS Alexander Ilin built a bigger self-made rocket from various stuff inside the Hab like carboard tubes (for rocket body), plastic boxes (for fins), thread and plastic bag (for parachute). Finally he made rocket with following parameters: - length 0,7 m - diameter 0,03 m - mass 120 g (with videocamera, without engine) Rocket engines were bought in Salt Lake City in advance - three Estes C6-7 (for bigger rocket) and three Estes B6-4 (for Alpha III). http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/engines/upper-stage/1615-c6-7 http://www.estesrockets.com/rockets/engines/standard/1606-b6-4 Estes Alpha III flew twice with Estes B6-4 engine. Altimeter, mounted on board, showed the peak height - 160 and 161 meter. Then self-made rocket was launched. Alexander Ilin estimated the peak altitude as ~120 meters (calculations show the maximum height of a strictly vertical flight as 160 meters). Unfortunately Estes C6-7 was not proper engine for such heavy rocket. It ejects parachute in 7 seconds after burn-out. It is too long. Parachute was not ejected, rocket crashed to the ground. USB-camera was broken but nevertheless we can get a data from it. Some conclusions: - It is extremely difficult to make a fine-tuning and delicate work in EVA-suit. Rockets should be prepared for the launch inside the Hab. - Vice versa it is easy to find a rocket on the flat red surface. The only thing you need is bright (not red) color on the rocket. We have three engines. So we are going to fix rockets and repeat a launch.