11 October 2008
Koehn Dry Lake Bed, CA
The GSC/CSULB team developed and flew the Prospector 12A (P-12A) as the final project under Task 3.3 of the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program that was administered by the California Space Authority on behalf of the California Employment Development Department and the U.S. Department of Labor. GSC and CSULB's responsibilities included providing future engineers hands-on hardware experience in aerospace vehicle development and test operations. In addition, the team also worked with Stanford University (the other principal Task 3.3 participant) in the integration and manifesting of multiple academic payloads from organizations that included the University of Kentucky (U of K) and Santa Clara University. This launch campaign leveraged lessons learned from the previous Prospector 8 flight test conducted the year before.
Launch took place on Saturday morning, 11 October 2008 on the first count after a very smooth set of pre-launch operations, despite high winds the day before. Lift-off was nominal and the 4.5K engine functioned as predicted. At the end of its burn, there appeared to be some aerodynamic instability, possibly associated with greater than expected flow separation at the base of the vehicle. The drogue parachute then deployed but separated when the line broke, at which point the P-12A entered into a flat spin and remained in that mode until impact.
The basic P-12A airframe, which consisted of the refurbished Prospector 11A (P-11A) that had flown the previous June, was damaged beyond the point of being reusable, although key individual propulsion components do appear to be salvageable. On the plus side, the student payloads survived intact and in at least the case of the U of K experiment, produced viable results after recovery. In parallel, the extensive use of wireless technologies for inertial measurements and propulsion system instrumentation and telemetry functions, first demonstrated on the P-11A, produced comprehensive data sets during the critical phase of engine operation.
Going forward, candidate corrective actions have been identified for enhancing the aerodynamic properties of the P-11A / P-12A class of vehicle, as well as eliminating the failure mode associated with the parachute recovery system.
P-12A Undergoing Final Integration by Representatives from GSC, CSULB, Stanford and U of K
Launch Crew
Lift-off
P-12A in Powered Flight
Post-Landing
P-12 Payloads - Before and After
Last Updated: 09 January 2009