Back in April at the MTA, we witnessed a static fire of a micrograin “tractor” rocket. A lot of the I_sp loss of a micrograin occurs since the burning fuel basically falls out the back end of the motor, producing the fantastic exhaust plume that makes micrograins so seductive. The idea of the “tractor” was to force most of the combustion to occur inside of the chamber by locating the nozzle at the top end of the motor. Unfortunately, this flight vehicle experienced the fate of many micrograin rockets:

Oops.

Posted January 8, 2008 in Media, Motors. Add Comment / Trackback