While the record breaking Stratos II+ launch of October 2015 was a huge success for DARE, there was also one disappointment: not all parts of the rocket came back safely to Earth. The capsule, with the important data, landed safely by a parachute but the oxidizer tank and engine did not. Later it was found…
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On the 16th of October 2015, at 16:33 CEST Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering launched Stratos II+ to a record altitude of 21.5 km capturing the European student altitude record. This milestone in the history of DARE happened six months ago today. In the past 6 months a team composed of Stratos II+ veterans and new student…
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Stratos II+ took off at 16:33 CEST on the 16th of October and reached 21457 meters altitude setting a new European altitude record for amateur rocketry. We had a picture perfect flight from the El Arenosillo launch site yesterday. While we didn’t make the 50 km altitude, we did break the record and so far…
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We just received the final go from the INTA personnel at the El Arenosillo launch base to launch the Stratos II+ again this afternoon. Our launch window opens at 16:00 CEST and we will start our preparations around 11:00 to make the launch happen at 16:00 or slightly later. You can again watch the launch…
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Today is going to be the day, we are go for launch! We expect to launch some time after 11:00 CEST in the morning (09:00 GMT) assuming good weather conditions. Follow the launch live as we try to launch the Stratos II+ rocket to 50 km altitude. The launch countdown procedures take over 4 hours…
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Tuesday evening we decided to delay the launch attempt for one day to Thursday the 15th. The team had worked non-stop from early in the morning trying to make the launch happen today. While the planned system tests for the day went fairly smooth, some unresolved issues were found while doing the final countdown rehearsal. It…
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One of the key systems of the Stratos II+ rocket is the Flight Termination System (FTS). The FTS ensures a safe launch ensuring that the rocket does not fly anywhere where it is not supposed to fly. In this blog post we’ll discuss the details of the FTS. Safety ensured To ensure safety during the…
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The last two days we saw a lot more system tests including dealing with our nemesis from last year; testing the Flight Termination System (FTS). As you probably heard by now we also decided to delay the first launch attempt to Wednesday the 14th of October. The reason for this delay was luggage getting lost…
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One of the first questions people will ask when you tell you’re planning to launch a rocket is: “But where does it land?”. If you are flying to a few hundreds of meters altitude this question may be easy to answer using some simple calculus. When you however start to mix in supersonic speeds, weather…
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The NLR – Netherlands Aerospace Centre is one of the sponsors of the Stratos II+ campaign. It is partners like NLR which enable our team to build and launch a rocket the size of Stratos II+ while they also provide use with access to a wide array of tools, facilities and knowledge. NLR has been…
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