Afterlaunch

After the launch

Following the launch the rocket came back down to earth under its own weight and collided with the soft ground nose first. The top part of the rocket was nowhere to be seen, but with a little effort we managed to pull the rest of the rocket out of the ground. The engine section with the fins on snapped clean off, but by some miracle remained perfectly intact even though we feared that the fins would snap off even on landing with a parachute! Amazingly, after taking the wreck back to the ground station, we managed to take out the components and against all odds, the equipment was fine, and was still operational! The following are the pictures I took after the agony of seeing our hard work going plummeting to the ground.

This is what we came across when we found where it had landed. The black cloth is the cladding used to protect the parachute from the explosive charge... it so happened that this cladding helped reduce the impact velocity... essentially saving the rocket

This is the engine section after its been propped back up again, the motor can be seen popping through the top.

The bent contents of the rocket. It would seem that the design that we came up with helped to act as a crumple zone for the equipment. The top section of the payload bent as can be seen, but the bottom section is dead straight, as though nothing had ever happened. The only internal damage were the plastic battery holders.

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