A Record Flight of the Hybrid Sounding Rocket HEROS 3

Abstract

Hybrid rocket propulsion offers inherent safety during handling and launch operations at low cost. This makes it not only attractive for space tourism applications like SpaceShipTwo but also for sounding rockets and for educational activities with students. This has been successfully demonstrated by the HyEnD student project from the University of Stuttgart: On November 8th, 2016 at 10:30 a.m. the hybrid sounding rocket HEROS 3 was launched from the Esrange Space Center to an apogee altitude of 32,300m (106,000 ft). This set a new altitude record for European student and amateur rocketry. Furthermore, this is a world altitude record for hybrid rockets built by students. It was successfully recovered with the drogue and main parachute being released. The rocket was powered by a 10 kN design thrust hybrid rocket engine with a paraffin-based fuel and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) as the oxidizer. The combustion efficiency was verified to be above 97% in ground tests. Liquid burn time in the flight was for 15 s with an additional combustion of gaseous N2O in the blow-down mode of about 10 s. The rocket was 7.5m long with an empty mass of about 75 kg. The rocket structure was made completely from light-weight carbon fibre and glass fibre reinforced plastic.