Video Caption: Bird’s-eye view of launch! Pretty awesome! Exos SARGE M4 Launch – Drone Footage
TAG
“SARGE”
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Last year was a busy one for suborbital flights as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic conducted a combined four flights of their crewed suborbital vehicles. Despite hopes to the contrary, neither company flew paying tourists on their spaceships.
There were also 26 sounding rocket launches that carried scientific experiments and technology payloads above the atmosphere. The year saw:
- Japanese startup Interstellar Technologies conduct a successful launch of its Momo commercial sounding rocket;
- Texas-based Exos Aerospace continue to struggle with its reusable SARGE booster; and,
- the first suborbital launch ever achieved by college students.
UPHAM, NM (NASA PR) — On Oct. 26, Exos Aerospace launched its SARGE suborbital reusable launch vehicle from Spaceport America, New Mexico, with a NASA Flight Opportunities–supported payload onboard: the University of Central Florida’s Suborbital Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment-2 (SPACE-2). The flight was aborted 48 seconds after launch due to what the company reported to be a structural failure. Exos is in the process of evaluating video and telemetry data […]
The fourth launch of a suborbital SARGE rocket by Exos Aerospace ended with a crash of the booster near its launch pad after a brief flight at Spaceport America on Saturday. The booster appeared to wobble as it gained altitude after lift off. Data displayed on the Exos website indicated that the rocket reached an altitude of 41,464 ft (12,638 m) and a velocity of 1,264 mph (2,034 k/h). SARGE’s […]
SPACEPORT AMERICA, NM — EXOS Aerospace’s SARGE 3 launch went awry shortly after liftoff from Spaceport America on Saturday as the suborbital rocket suffered control problems only seconds into its flight. Liftoff appeared nominal, but then the rocket began to veer from side to side as it ascended. It was not clear from the webcast what altitude the booster reached. Ground control team members lost sight of the rocket for […]
Join us LIVE tomorrow for SARGE Launch 3 – Mission 2! Our launch window is from 9:30-12, and we will be kicking off the live stream at 9:30 AM MST! https://t.co/f0iZOmxsTP — EXOS (@exosaerosystech) June 29, 2019
An Exos Aerospace SARGE rocket reached 19.8 km (12.3 miles) before the flight abort after launch from Spaceport America on March 2, the company announced in a statement.
SARGE’s autonomous control system aborted the flight at about 65,000 ft after the rocket reached its instantaneous impact point (IIP) limit, Exos said. In essence, booster determined it was likely to land outside of the permissible range.
The flight had aimed to reach 80 km (49.7 miles). Despite the early abort, the company said it was pleased with the results of the second flight of the reusable booster, which previously flew last August.
The reusable, suborbital rocket landed back in the desert under a parachute. No information yet on altitude. Flight programs and associated payloads on the flight included: SPACEedu… Help your school fund, build, fly and reuse CubeSat projects for their S.T.E.M research programs. Having already flown for many schools, Exos is literally taking education to a higher level. P1. Arete’ Greater Nanticoke Area Trojans (space thermal energy transfer experiment). SPACEbuild… Test or manufacture in […]
SARGE launch at Spaceport America. (Screenshot from Exos Aerospace webcast)
GREENVILLE, Texas (EXOS Aerospace PR) — EXOS Aerospace Systems & Technologies, Inc., a leading developer of reusable space launch vehicles based in Greenville, Texas, announces, “Reuse Viability Test” for their SARGE Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle (SRLV).
Texas firm sets March 2nd, 2019 for the first reuse flight (Mission 1) of their Suborbital Autonomous Rocket with GuidancE (SARGE)
SpaceShipTwo fires its hybrid engine. (Credit: Kenneth Brown)
Part 2 of 2
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
There were 15 flight tests of eight suborbital boosters in 2018, including six flights of two vehicles — Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin’s New Shepard — that are designed to carry passengers on space tourism rides.
The race to provide launch services to the booming small satellite industry also resulted in nine flight tests of six more conventional boosters to test technologies for orbital systems. Two of the boosters tested are designed to serve the suborbital market as well.
A pair of Chinese startups took advantage of a loosening of government restrictions on launch providers to fly their rockets two times apiece. There was also suborbital flight tests of American, Japanese and South Korean rockets.