For the record, at 121,000 feet--23 miles--the pressure is only 93 pascals. Since the triple point of water is 611.73 pascals, if a desert rat had stowed away on Qu8k its blood would have boiled in its body at body temperature. The density of the air is low too: 0.005 times that of the air at sea level. Notice that your ejected drogue line did not become taut quicky. The average air temperature there is -32 Celsius. I had fun identifying some of the various geographical features of Northern Nevada and Northern California in your video. The geometric horizon is 685 km ( 428 miles) away, approximately. So you should be able to see Lassen peak and the Pacific ideally.
Student Payloads for Extreme Environments Research
Symbiosis Foundation will be soliciting payload concepts from High School and Universities.
Grants will be awarded to the top concepts and their payloads will fly onboard the next flight of Qu8k.
Please send your schools information to ddeville@msn.com to be informed as this project moves forward/
This is the RAS Aero simulation after tweaking the motor burn time a little to better match the flight. Before the adjustment the sim was showing 126k.
The time to apogee matches well with what the video shows. Another interesting thing is that the maximum descent rate is 900 ft/s (not shown in this graph).
The change in slope during descent phase at around 60-80k illustrates where the air finally starts filling the chute and slowing things down.
BUILDING QU8K
Thanks to all my friends and family that contributed
Jorge Pinos and Angel Fernandez - Endless machining
Guy Kress - Launch Tower
Greg & Rowan Mayback - Financial, moral and physical support
Bret Ranc - Launch support
Korey Kline - Inspiration and design review
Carlos Rivera - Road Tripping to Pitt
Tripoli Pittsburgh - Motor transport
Al Bychek - BRB, tracking and launch support
Chuck Rogers - Simulation and load calculation
Miguel Hernandez - Late night support and heavy lifting
Jim Harper - Logistics
Marc Devits - Electronics support
Ky "The-Rocketman" Michaelson - Parachute
Michael & Danah Kirk and Ed Ampuero - Propellant casting
Especially my Wife & kids for extreme tolerance and encouragement - I Love You
A Tremendous Thanks to my sponsors
8 inch diameter 167.5 inch long 320 lbs liftoff weight Q-18,000 143,000 N-sec 4,000 lbs of thrust for 8 seconds 121,000’ Max Altitude 3,200 ft/s Max Velocity 92 seconds to apogee 8.5 minutes total flight time 900 ft/s maximum velocity during recovery Full recovery 3 miles from launch site
























