The CSXT GoFast Fuscient space shot 2004 rocket had a successful launch on May 17, 2004. A successful launch, but did it make it successfully to space? That was the big question. The rocket launched and had a good burn of the rocket motor, correct burn time, no anomalies in the exhaust trail, near straight up flight as expected with the launcher angle set from balloon and winds data. Technically, it should have made space.
Real time telemetry failed almost immediately. Some said it was the spinning of the rocket, which was planned for and later data analysis indicated it was a maximum of 8 revolutions per second, but that occurred at motor burnout. Another account was that the patch antennas were burned, but that probably wasn’t true since the failure was even before the rocket made Mach 1. There was also a rumor that the antenna operator couldn’t keep the rocket tracked. In any event, no telemetry and the on-board video failed after 2 seconds also.
This made it mandatory that we find and recover the nose cone/payload section to recover the on-board avionics which were recording the flight data. To help with that effort we had installed multiple radio transmitting beacons on both the nose cone/payload section and the booster. The radio tracking beacons were provided by Merlin Systems. A donation as a secondary corporate sponsor and they sent employee Mike Money to help with the tracking since he was a super tracker using their equipment.
With on the ground trackers in multiple locations and Merlin System's Mike Money at Launch Control, the signals were received 4 minutes after launch and after the rocket had separated the booster section from the nose cone/payload section. The Merlin tracker parts were now out of the confines of the vehicle, exposed to space and coming back to earth. The nose cone/payload section signals were tracked almost all the way to the ground, but stopped when the nose cone/payload section, which was coming back on parachute as designed, went behind a mountain which blocked the signals.
That was good enough to get us to the general area of the recovery. Merlin System's Mike Money climbed aboard the CSXT helicopter to see if he could find the landing area to direct the recovery teams. The helicopter was Robinson 422, which is rather small and with limited space. Mike was not able to take a big directional antenna and was only able to use a handheld omni directional antenna. Unfortunately, winds in the mountains where we needed to look were too high for safe passage and the helicopter pilot was not able to do a complete search. Mike Money was able to roughly determine where the strongest signal he could pick up came from at a distance.
Several groups headed out immediately to start the recovery efforts. There was even an unauthorized and unwelcome group that was snooping on radio communications (for the 2014 reunion launch we used encrypted communications) that wanted to recover the nose cone/payload section (nefarious or not, unknown). They tried to get up the 4x4 trails in a Volvo car, got stuck, damaged their vehicle and had to be rescued and never heard of again.
Mike Money returned back to Launch Control in the helicopter, got his good directional antenna and headed back to the mountains to continue the search. By now it was late afternoon and the people searching had to head in before dark. Unfortunately, because of the mountains, the tracker signals were bouncing off of them and coming from multiple locations, false leads, due to the fact the searchers were too far away to track the actual location.
The CSXT team met up at Bruno’s that night to review the day’s activities. The mood was high; we were sure we made space. Based on Jerry Larson’s calculations, using trajectory analysis, timing of the sonic booms and Mike Money’s tracker estimates we had a good idea of where to search tomorrow. For many people on the team, tonight was going to finally be a good night of sleep after a successful day, or some who would lose more sleep worrying if we actually made it to space.
First thing next morning we all gathered at Bruno’s. When everyone was there most of the CSXT team headed up to the mountains. We even brought a porta potty with us for base camp, except we found out when we arrived it was unusable. The rough dirt 4x4 roads caused fluids and stuff to spread out internally.
We knew approximately where to look and the teams and individuals spread out and headed up into the mountains. There were long treks up and down mountain sides. It took a while, then CSXT Team member Ky Michaelson’s friend “Bradley” Hansen found it. He saw the white parachute a couple of 100 feet up the mountain from his position and went right to it. Since there were a limited number of radios, Bradley didn’t have one. He frantically waved his arms to get the attention of other teams. After a while someone saw him and decided to investigate. Ding Ding Ding, he found the nose cone/booster section up the side of a mountain at 6,350 feet. The team that found Bradley had a radio and notified the other teams and they all converged on that location and the announcement was made that the nose cone/payload section was found intact, impaled in the mountain side.
Now for a “Rest of the Story” note. Several items here to discuss that have not been known outside of some of the CSXT team. One of the volunteer groups had an unearned sense of entitlement. They didn’t contribute to CSXT financially and used CSXT to sell their brand. They did volunteer to help and we appreciate that, but some things they did, didn’t sit well with existing CSXT Team members. They were to help with aspects of the launch and the search. Jerry Larson identified the search area. When we were at base camp, CSXT team members were ready to go. This volunteer group said No, we need to set up a search grid pattern, assign teams for each grid, hold off until tomorrow to start and spend the next 4 days conducting the search methodically. CSXT Team said, nuts to that, and immediately started the search and subsequently found the nose cone/payload section that afternoon.
CSXT team, Ky Michaelson’s friend, “Bradley” found the landing point for the nose cone/payload section. This is not mentioned in any article or book. The volunteer search guys had a radio and when they got to Bradley, they announced on the radio that they found the nose cone/payload section. THEY DID NOT FIND IT! They were the first with a radio to get to the CSXT guy waving his arms. Even worse was when they got there, they surrounded the nose cone/payload section and wouldn’t let anyone or CSXT team members near it. When Jerry Larson arrived, he made them move.
Bradley was actually a little obnoxious about it, over the next couple of days that’s all we heard from him, “I found it.” Billy McFarland the photographer did a great funny impression of Bradley, saying "We blah blah and I found the rocket blah blah blah and I found the rocket, blah blah blah, and oh yeah, I found the rocket blah." Actually, we didn’t really care, because we have it and it proved we made it to space, and not just space, but 72 miles up.
When Bradley found the nose cone/payload section it appeared to be intact, simply impaled into the rock rubble almost the full length of the nose cone. The payload section was completely intact and had the parachute still attached. After CSXT Team members, Jerry Larson, Jim Hoffman, Tony Cochran and Billy McFarland arrived at the landing location (Jerry’s Dad “Clark” was down the mountainside several hundred feet but couldn’t make the last of the steep rocky climb), the nose cone/payload section was stuck in the rocks. After removing a bunch of the rocks surrounding the impalement of the nose cone/payload section, it was pulled out of the rocks. This left a hole about a foot wide and deep. CSXT crew threw a couple of empty GoFast cans into the hole to mark it for posterity, and filled the rocks back in.
Jerry, Jimmy and others lugged the nose cone/payload section really carefully down to the closest 4x4 and drove the rest of the way to base camp and loaded the nose cone/payload section into Jerry’s truck.
One last crazy thing happened on the way back. Jerry’s pickup truck ran out of gas. A CSXT team member went in to town to get some and return so Jerry could bring his truck and nose cone/payload section back to Bruno’s for everybody to see.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.