A team of students from Imperial College London is in limbo after losing the 拢150,000 rocket they launched towards space on 24 September. Volunteers are scouring the Mojave desert in California for evidence that will establish whether the mission was successful or not.
The (KSP) was founded by students two years ago with the aim of breaking through the K谩rm谩n line, 100 kilometres above Earth鈥檚 surface, which is widely recognised as the edge of space. If successful, they will become the first non-government, non-commercial team to launch a reusable rocket into space.
The team鈥檚 Aurora rocket weighed 540 kilograms when fuelled, stood 12 metres tall and was 50 centimetres in diameter. Because of the small working space on campus, it was assembled for the first time at the launch site in the Mojave desert.
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KSP volunteers present at the launch say the rocket appeared to follow the trajectory they had simulated in software, but navigation issues led to the rocket becoming lost somewhere in the 81,000 square kilometres of the Mojave.
鈥淵ou asked me before the launch 鈥榳hat are the chances of success鈥�, and I said 50/50, it鈥檚 like tossing a coin. Well, this time it鈥檚 landed on the edge: it鈥檚 not tails, it鈥檚 not heads,鈥� says KSP鈥檚 chairman . 鈥淚f we find it, we鈥檒l get loads of data, information, footage. Right now, unfortunately, we don鈥檛 know whether it鈥檚 succeeded or failed.鈥�
The team believes the navigation issues were caused by restrictions built into the Global Positioning System (GPS) by the US government. If a GPS receiver records an altitude above 18 kilometres or a speed higher than 510 metres per second, it is usually disabled to prevent its use in an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The US Space Force didn鈥檛 respond to questions from New 杏吧原创, but the Aurora rocket was expected to reach a maximum speed of 5522 kilometres per hour 鈥� or roughly 1500 metres per second 鈥� and an altitude of 105 kilometres, so would almost certainly have fallen foul of restrictions.
at Cranfield University, UK, says his team has faced similar issues with stratospheric balloon experiments, but was able to choose a receiver that didn鈥檛 limit functionality. 鈥淚f the student team was not aware of this issue, they may have inadvertently chosen a GNSS [global navigation satellite system] receiver that had restricted functionality under the conditions the student team were flying,鈥� he says.
KSP volunteers are still hunting for the rocket, but fear finding it could take up to two months. Once they recover it, they will ship it back to the UK for analysis, where data logged on board should prove whether it did indeed reach space. Even if this first rocket is never located, the team intends to start work on a second and has already booked a date for a launch from the same site in several months.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to jinx it, but I鈥檝e never been more confident in our design,鈥� says Shapol. 鈥淚鈥檓 very confident because by now it seems like the problem is with the GPS, and we know that GPS with rockets is a bit fidgety just because of how the US Department of Defense allows it to be used. We think within that 15 seconds of launch it reached the kind of speed where the GPS just got disabled automatically, and it never got enabled again once it reached a low speed. I鈥檝e never been more optimistic.鈥�
