Copenhagen Suborbitals open-source private spacerocket will launch in an hour
raketvenner.dk
raketvenner.dk
The story seems like it should end with "they don't always drink beer, but when they do..."
The picture was taken in September last year when the first (failed) attempt to launch the rocket was made.
Here's a picture of the succesful launch today: http://www.bornholmstidende.dk/nonsec/NPIX/2011/6/Launch.jpg
This time around they decided to enable the rocket platform to sail on its own: http://politiken.tv/nyheder/videnskab/article1298751.ece
this is a private noncommercial opensource project, and the whole thing is built on donations and people working in their freetime.
First attempt the auto-sequence didn't start properly, but on a retry they've achieved liftoff. The screams from the mission control feed gave me goosebumps.
Altitude: 2.8 kilometers
Traveled a total: 8.5 kilometers
Congratulations to copenhagen suborbitals.
That message is amazing, and I've found that has been a huge differentiator between people who are stellar performers vs. people who are mediocre or poor.
About 6 minutes in, one can see the scale of the rocket as someone is welding on a fin. The launch videos linked above do not properly convey the scale, and I was surprised at how big it actually was.
If a hobbyist group built a skyscraper in two months on a shoestring budget and it collapsed after a year, it would be a success.
If a national government funded a skyscraper, spent two months on it, and it collapsed after a year, they'd be a laughing stock.
For a volunteer/hobbyist/amateur/donation group, this is enormously progressive and successful; for a national space agency, it wouldn't be.
We launch from sea in Denmark, east of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea. We like the idea of launching (and landing) on water. If we are able to control this environment we are basically able to launch our rockets from anywhere in the world to any height.
The basic problem that keeps most amateur rocketry projects from reaching high altitude is that of a suitable launch site. Northern Europe is very densely populated, and there are no areas like the Black Rock Desert. Even if we did have deserts here, the regulatory regime of private, amateur spaceflight is Terra Incognito to authorities.
However it has been discovered that outside the national territorial waters - typically 12 nautical miles off the coast - things gets a lot simpler from a legal perspective. In the practical world the open sea also offers a lot of interesting features to us.
Few landmasses on the planet is as empty as the open sea - and as easy to monitor. This makes the whole issue of range safety relatively simple compared to the conditions on land. Most space ports are found on a coastline for the same reason. Finally - operating out of Copenhagen, Denmark - the logistic challenge of launching rockets from Sahara or some place in the Artic is much larger than sailing a couple of hundred nautical miles out to sea.
As a result, in 2009, we decided to commit Copenhagen Suborbitals to sea launch.
http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/
I hope someone has told the Russians:
unsurprisingly, the initial answer was that it was not ok. They got it solved though.
VLC can play it but the server is getting hammered right now. Received 503 the first few tries but then it loaded.
EDIT 10:28 Eastern They're resuming the countdown in 6 minutes and they are go for launch.
aside: why don't any of the "live" video companies offer complete rewind/replay? Why can't I go to the page linked in the OP and watch the whole thing, even though it is no longer "live"?
That does seem like a feature that would make a lot of sense for live videos to have. Could be that there are patents preventing them, or something like that, because it would make live videos far more valuable.