Kiwi 2 Space is participating in the international N-Prize competition: a nearly impossible global competition to launch a tiny satellite for under £999 (~$2,300 NZD). Three teams from New Zealand (making up around 12.5% of the total worldwide entrants to date) are taking on this challenge.
4 September 2010
Well I finally got around to engine testing again, this time we had everything in place and tested, including the little spark torch igniter which I only got going the night before. David had made a new launch control box which now separates us from the computer for testing of the rocket engine, although running the controls through the computer was very cool, its much faster and easier to diagnose problems by going to this manual setup, I guess you would call it. The plan is to reinstate the computer control via wireless for our test rocket.
So for the first time in a long time everything was setup quickly and everything was working as it was suppose to!. But it wasn’t to be.
Upon ignition the engine failed to light, closed the valves, and tried again, nothing. The igniter was firing every time so we investigated and tried once more. Nothing. Back to look over and the igniter wasn’t firing this time due to a loose earth for the sparkplug, that fixed still nothing, so we put a new sparkplug in it only to burn it out upon testing the igniter again. Bugger. So with that we called it a day.
We walked away knowing we need to buy a stockpile of small engine spark plugs and possibly modify the igniter, to move the plug away from the combustion gases more. And the big one a complete re-design of the injector is needed to get enough atomisation of the propellants, so next time (3rd time lucky) we should get fire. At least on the way we’ve encountered and fixed all these little things you don’t plan for. So on that note its off to stand in front of the lathe for the night!
Pictures of the day here: http://picasaweb.google.com/117796676286772168889/IF01AtTesting
Iain