Student rocketeers aim high with 'Chimaera'

It was, said Utah State University graduate student David Omer, a very loud motor.

"In fact, even inside the reinforced bunker with the back door closed, we could feel it through the ground. We were about 100 yards away."

Omer was describing the launch of the Chimaera rocket, a 20-foot behemoth built by USU students for what was billed as the First Annual University Rocket Launch Competition. Sponsored by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association, the contest was held Jan. 5 at a former federal rocket launch complex near Green River, Emery County.

The only other competitor, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, entered a smaller rocket. Although Alabama says it apparently reached 11,000 feet, as opposed to the 5,700 feet or so of the Chimaera, USU won the competition based on other considerations.

The Alabama rocket, which was 8.5 feet long, was boosted by a commercially available engine; USU built its own.

Both rockets' recovery systems failed and they hit hard.

The USU entry broke apart in midair when the chute came out too late, after it had accelerated on the downward flight. The Alabama missile fired a pyrotechnic charge that should have released its drogue parachute on time, but a fold in the fabric apparently caused the gas to flow around it instead of forcing it from the rocket.

"Their burn time was proper, and man, they really took off," said Gil Moore, recounting the launches. "They both flew beautifully."

Moore — a legendary space scientist and physics professor who taught at USU and then the Air Force Academy before retiring to Monument, Colo. — long ago founded the Utah university rocketry program of which this is a continuation. He was present as a guest of honor and a judge.

Paul Mueller, adjunct assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at USU, said the contest was organized by a Utah nonprofit group he helped launch in 2003, the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association.

Now that the first launch session has taken place, he hopes that other universities will want to compete in the future.

As far as he knows, the Chimaera was the largest student-built rocket ever fired in Utah. It was "much larger than it would need to be for just a flight to 10,000 feet," the contest's goal.

The group's plans are to use the design to go much higher, "over 100,000 feet," if the rocket is fully fueled.

Both entries burned a rubber-like solid fuel with a liquid oxidizer made of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas.