Today marked a landmark in model rocketeering.
Steve Eve’s launched a 36ft long, 1600lb 1/10 scale replica of the Saturn V rocket that took the first men to the moon on July 20, 1969. The project commemorated the 40th anniversary of that “giant leap for mankind” and was a rousing success. It also has been recorded in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest model rocket ever flown.
The flight of the model took place today at approximately 1pm. The rocket flew to an altitude of about 4000ft on over 8000lbs of thrust from eight enormous solid rocket motors: eight 13,000ns N-Class motors and a 77,000ns P-Class motor
Congrats to Steve Eve and the rest of the Saturn V team on a successful launch!
Video of the launch:
Here are some photos of the rocket on launch day, courtesy of my friend Scott Tyrrell:
Rocket on the pad ready to go. Spectators were held back to about 1/4 mile away from the rocket. No argument from me on that one!
Lower stage landed standing up!
Upper stage sustained some damage on landing. Onboard altimiter clocked in at around 4000ft.
Crew capsule. Note the signatures on the capsule itself.
Launch tower after the launch. Note the blast crater created by 8900lbs of thrust!. The launch tower, which is all metal and weighs a good bit, was knocked back about 3ft after the rocket cleared it.
My video ended up on Fox news! Note the “www.rcgrabbag.com” watermark in the video. Here’s a link to the Fox News segment on the launch: http://www.steveevessaturnv.org/video/SteveEves-FoxNews.wmvIf you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
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Brilliant work Steve. Congratulations!
However, you know that natural progression kind of demands a few more launches… Sell some advertising to fund it.
Launches with a powered second and third stage seem necessary.
Maybe 5 P and 4 N’s in the first stage, and a cluster of rockets on the second stage, and a single on the third.
This kind of a launch would demand telemetry & GPS (which was likely employed already) and an onboard camera for the first stage, most likely recording locally.
Again, A fine achievement! Please continue!
Dante
And now for some educated commentary – Dude that was freakin Awsome!!!
WOW, that was great, thanks Steve for bringing this to us
Hi there Steve!
I have just finished reading the book. Riding Rockets by shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane which was among the funniest books I\’ve ever read, and here you come with the icing of my cake, that was wonderfull.
I just want to tell you about a guy here in Denmark, Peter Madsen, who personally have built 2 functioning submarines and now are getting ready to launch himself into space in a homemade rocket. The tests have come out very promising and he have got the necessary permissions to launch his spaceship.
Anyway, wonderfull job you did, go on and show us some more.
best regards
Lars Andersen
Denmark
Just saw Steve on Fox News. Congrats!
Where in Maryland did the launch take place?
My hat’s off to Steve. It was great to see the video of the launch. I was into model rocketry 20+ years ago (Estes rockets, that sort of thing) when I was in elementary and jr. high school. I used to dream of building rockets like this.
Excellent ride. Well done, Steve. Your name is going down in model rocket history.
What a milestone launch! AWESOME! We saw the model rocket on display in Huntsville, Alabama at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Just standing next to the model, which is right next to the real deal Saturn 5 rocket inside, gives me the chills I felt as a child watching them launch on tv.