15 Homemade ROCKETS that are Incredible

[Music] this group of friends have a more advanced space program than north korea it's amazing what can be accomplished with enough ingenuity here are the top 15 most incredible homemade rockets number 15 csxt the civilian space exploration team which is also known as csxt is a group of space flight enthusiasts who organize amateur rocket launches without any assistance from traditional space agencies the group was responsible for the first launch of an amateur rocket that made it higher than 62 miles and therefore officially reached space the 21 foot tall and 10 inch diameter rocket called go fast reached a speed of 3 420 miles per hour and it reached a maximum altitude of 72 miles but despite this successful attempt the team knew they could do even better their greatest achievement took place in 2014 with the second launch of their go fast rocket but this time with some significant alterations on july 14th they launched from the blackrock desert in nevada and by using an ammonium perchlorate-based solid propellant the rocket achieved an even faster speed of 3580 miles per hour and reached an impressive altitude of just over 73 miles after their success the group of around 30 experts have gone back to the drawing board to come up with a completely new design and hope to take amateur space flight to new ice at some point this decade number 14 quake when john carmack a games developer offered a cash prize for anyone that was able to launch a rocket that had reached a height of at least a hundred thousand feet it inspired a whole new generation of space enthusiasts who took up the challenge while many failed in their pursuit of the goal there was one team that was able to build a simplistic design that easily reached the target known as quake in reference to the game that carmack designed it was built by a group who were led by derek deville the rocket was 8 inches in diameter and just under 14 feet tall and was equipped with two timers four gps devices an accelerometer a cosmic ray detector and several cameras to record the launch thrust was provided by ammonium perchlorate composite propellant and was launched from the black rock desert in nevada on september 30th 2011. it accelerated to a maximum velocity of 3200 feet per second and within 92 seconds after liftoff it had reached an altitude of 121 thousand feet far beyond what they were attempting it took a further nine minutes for it to return to earth under a parachute and the team were able to recover all of the elements intact the only problem the team faced was that the gps system failed at a critical moment which meant they didn't have full proof required to show that they went above a hundred thousand feet but even with the chance they might not win the prize the team didn't mind after all it cost far more than the five thousand dollars on offer to design and develop a rocket capable of doing this number 13 vulcan one on may the 21st 2016 a group of students from the university of san diego managed to successfully launch their own rocket from a launch site in mojave california after two years of preparation known as vulcan one it had been in development since 2014 with mentorship from experts at nasa despite starting as a passion project between a few students the team soon grew to more than 60 members the main differential between vulcan one and other rockets is that it's relied upon the use of 3d printed engine to provide thrust they raised more than twenty thousand dollars on a crowdfunding platform to build the body which was nineteen feet tall and eight inches in diameter and the engine itself was made from inconel 718 material that was fabricated by direct metal laser sintering by using a bi-propellant that was made up of liquid oxygen and refined kerosene the rocket was able to generate 750 pounds of thrust and reached a maximum altitude of 40 000 feet even though this was shy of reaching space it was groundbreaking in that it showed it was possible to build an engine with a 3d printer and it's hoped that by proving this to be a viable method it will reduce overall construction costs for future amateur designs number 12 stratos 2 plus delft aerospace rocket engineering which is known as dare for short is a society at the delft university in the netherlands that's dedicated to learning about rocket science they have organized several projects since their formation in 2001 but their biggest success came with the stratos 2 rocket that was launched in 2015 at 23 feet tall and 7.9 inches in diameter it's a one-stage design that weighs just 408 pounds the initial target was to reach an altitude of 50 kilometers which is the equivalent to 31 miles but in the design process the simulation suggested this wouldn't be possible and the team instead focused on reaching the highest point they possibly could to do this they used a dhx200 aurora engine which has an output of 11 kilonewtons and burns for 23 seconds after liftoff the intent is that the engine burns all of its fuel and then the rocket will continue along its trajectory until it runs out of momentum and then it will begin to fall back down towards the ground after several failed attempts in 2014 the team was able to finally launch the successful flight in 2015 and it was measured as reaching an impressive altitude of 13.4 miles while carrying some scientific experiments that were returned to earth safely after this success the team plans to keep on going higher and higher and despite failing with their attempts with the stratos 3 they're hoping to try again with stratos 4 within the next few years number 11 thunderstruck 5 not every rocket design requires large teams of students as this next launch proves thunderstruck 5 was the culmination of a dream by an australian man and his 12 year old son and saw them build the world's smallest craft that was able to re-enter the earth's atmosphere and land safely and in 2015 their design was proven to be a success he described it as being a small winged re-entry vehicle something that will become vital in the future if space flight becomes more common because it will be craft like this that will be responsible for carrying supplies between low orbit facilities the family from sydney australia built the eight foot long craft in their backyard but this didn't mean it lacked in power by using solid fuel they were able to achieve speeds equivalent to twice the speed of sound and eventually expect to be controlling the craft by remote at speeds of up to 1200 miles per hour so far all of their design tests have worked out but it'll be a long road until their full design is realized they hope to be able to finally be able to guide a re-entry within the next few years and if this is as successful as their progress so far it could open up a new realm of space flight based in australia number 10 phoenix iv in september of 2015 kurt vondelius announced the successful launch of the phoenix iv a homemade rocket that on this occasion had a near flawless takeoff and reached an altitude of just over 18 miles this was the result of a three-year project which used the basic design of a black brant eight sounding rocket which was improved upon by using lightweight materials modular components and a newly developed interstage that creates a rigid stack that reduces the amount of friction it's subjected to as it launched the rocket lifted off from the 20-foot tower at 97 miles per hour pulling 20 g's in the process it accelerated to mach 1.31 and took a surprisingly straight flight and gentle apogee after it reached its top height it fell back to earth under a parachute and landed just two miles away from where it had started which was so close that the team were able to see it land before driving in to recover it the project proved to be such a success that the team are now working on their next iteration and they hope that this time they'll be able to actually reach space number nine jr101 cape rocketry is a collective of rocket enthusiasts from south africa and they've been leading the way in the country for amateur launches their intent is to develop new technologies for space flight by using only parts that have been made in south africa and in august of 2019 they completed their first successful launch the rocket known as jr101 was powered by a custom-built ammonium nitrate motor which uses a slightly different fuel to most amateur launches in order to produce less harmful gases it was fitted with a gps system so its altitude could be tracked so the parachutes could be automatically released and so the rocket could be retrieved once it landed again it weighed 20 kilograms on the launch site and burnt more than a kilogram worth of propellant within the first second of launch with temperatures reaching more than 3 600 degrees fahrenheit in the engine it had reached twice the speed of sound within 7 seconds and after 45 seconds had reached an altitude of six and a half miles as a first attempt this is incredibly impressive and the team plan on returning with the aim of doubling this height and then in a few years hope to make the first launch to space from south africa we are constantly adding more people to the top fives production team to bring you all the best content be sure to subscribe with notifications on and hit the like button number eight icarus the 16 foot tall icarus rocket was designed and built by a team of students from the embry riddle aeronautical university in lakenheath england and in 2007 broke a world record for a university-built vehicle with a 15-pound scientific package on board which included accelerometers spin sensors and pressure sensors it was also fitted with a gps system so the team knew where it was at all times they were given permission to use wallops flight facility in virginia to launch from and after four years of planning the rocket was ready to test in 2007 it accelerated to several times the speed of sound in a matter of seconds and managed to reach an altitude of 40 miles which is two-thirds the distance to the edge of space since their success with this launch several members of the team have now gone on to work for nasa and the european space agency and the legacy of the rocket remains at the university with new members now hoping to one day break the record that their predecessors had set [Music] number seven ascension three not all rockets have to be powered by combustible fuel and you might be surprised just how far that those are thrust by water pressure are able to go the current world record is held by a team from the university of cape town's industrial computational fluid dynamics research group after a successful flight attempt in 2015. their design which was called ascension 3 was specifically targeting the record and every attempt was made to ensure it was as lightweight and accurate as possible the final version of the rocket was 8.8 feet tall but weighed just over 3 pounds and this included its flight computer on-board camera and parachute to cut the weight down even more the team used carbon fiber wherever they could and were amazingly able to launch it with 1 212 pounds of thrust which is enough to lift a small car the rocket reached a speed of 341 miles per hour within just half a second and on the two launches that took place on the 26th of august 2015 they reached an altitude of 235 and then 225 meters which gave them a new record of 230 meters or 755 feet it's still believed however that water powered rockets can exceed the thousand-foot mark so efforts are underway from teams around the world to try to prove that this is possible number six traveler four in april of 2019 a rocket that was fully designed and built by students from the university of southern california became the world record holder for the altitude reached by an amateur team and also became the first to cross the carmen line to reach space as you'd expect to break these records traveler 4 had a far more complicated design than most amateur rockets it had a custom designed nose cone which was made from cork and epoxy resin and surrounded the hamster avionics unit that broadcast measurements of altitude and position the bulkhead was made from lightweight aluminum and fiberglass to keep the overall weight down and even the carbon nozzle was specifically designed to channel as much thrust downwards as possible the result was a 13 foot tall and 8 inch wide rocket that weighed just 310 pounds and had a maximum thrust of 4 600 pounds of force thanks to the r-class motor and a blend of six different types of propellant launching from spaceport america it reached an altitude close to 340 000 feet which is by far the highest ever achieved by a student organization and it safely returned back to earth when they recovered the rocket just a few miles from the launch pad all of the paint had burned off in the atmosphere and even the fins were singed a little analysis of the video after the launch showed a slight oscillation in its flight shortly after launch and the team hopes that by working out what caused this and eliminating it the rocket could potentially go even further number five heat one x taiko brahe copenhagen suborbitals is an organization that was formed in 2008 with the aim to be the first to launch a human to suborbital flight by an amateur rocket there are of course a number of steps they need to go through before they have a design that's safe enough for a person to set foot on and their first design to be tested was the heat 1x tycho brahe this was planned to be a proof of concept which would be remote controlled and from the learning from this launch they'd be able to move on to further designs that would eventually be able to incorporate a human pilot instead of using a nitrous oxide fuel like the one used by virgin galactic rockets this model used liquid oxygen it was built from mainly construction steel and the booster was designed so it could be remotely shut off with the whole thing costing around fifty thousand dollars the first launch was planned for 2010 but due to a last-minute malfunction this had to be cancelled and was rescheduled for 2011. on june 3rd it was launched from a c platform and despite suffering from another malfunction it still successfully left it off it soon reached supersonic speed and got to an altitude of 1.7 miles but by this time the trajectory was so far off course that mission control was forced to shut off the engine after just 21 seconds had this not have happened it would have probably reached much higher and provided ample data for the organization to begin planning for their next test number four the dart project one of the most important aspects to the design of the rocket is the fuel that it uses and while there are plenty of established propellants engineers are constantly trying to develop cheaper and safer alternatives the dart project was tasked with the challenge of reaching an altitude in excess of fifty thousand feet fueled solely by a sugar-based propellant this required the design of a new 110 millimeter diameter o 9600 sugar rocket motor but once this was done the construction of the rest of the rocket was relatively simple process the dart itself was just under 50 millimeters in diameter weighed 20 and a half pounds and was mounted on a fiberglass body tube altimeters and a gps system were fitted on board and were powered by lithium-ion batteries and the entire thing was ready to launch in late 2015 the main booster burned out within three and a half seconds at an altitude of four thousand feet at which point the darts separated from the body tube and continued for a further 50 seconds to a height of 57 359 feet once it reached its apogee an 18-inch parachute was deployed which brought it safely back down to the ground where it landed within a half mile of the launch site apart from a couple of complications the launch was a complete success and the next plan is to build a two-stage rocket that also uses sugar-based fuel and simulations suggest that this design has the potential to reach at least a hundred thousand feet proving that there's far more to learn about the potential of different types of rocket fuel and their applications in space exploration number three heroes 3 heroes 3 was a rocket launched from the esrange space center in sweden in 2016. and at the time set the world record for the highest altitude reached by a rocket that had been built by a student organization the 24 foot tall vehicle was a hybrid sounding rocket that used nitrous oxide and a paraffin-based fuel as its propellant and this was calibrated to generate up to 10 000 newtons of thrust amazingly the fully loaded rocket weighed just 165 pounds thanks in part due to the use of carbon fiber and its construction and this ensured that the majority of thrust could be used for vertical lift on november the 8th 2016 the weather conditions at the space center were perfect for a launch and the rocket lifted off and reached a maximum velocity of mach 2.3 which is the equivalent of 2 360 feet per second this propelled the rocket to a height of 106 000 feet which smashed the european record for amateur rocketry analysis following the test showed that the rocket remained remarkably stable throughout its flight and that the fuel efficiency was actually better than had been expected after it reached its apogee the rocket was brought back down to the ground by two parachutes and suffered so little damage that it would have been possible to relaunch it straight away number two model mercury redstone the greatest and most successful rockets to have ever launched were built with the financial and scientific support of the american and russian governments despite some designs being many decades old they're still inspiring amateur rocketry enthusiasts around the world in 2018 the maryland delaware rocket association earned their place in the record books after building the world's largest scale model rocket which was based on the 1961 mercury redstone rocket that was responsible for taking the first astronaut to the moon their version was 64.75 feet tall in comparison to the 83.38 feet of the original and it weighed 700 pounds which was about a hundredth of the mass of nasa's version the main difference in weight of course was the volume of fuel that was used this replica version was only designed to go a short distance before returning to earth on its first flight it reached a maximum height of a half mile before parachuting back down to the ground which was further than any replica rocket has ever traveled before the main purpose of the project was to encourage creativity and design at a new workspace that had opened in delaware but after the success of this rocket launch the team behind it are planning to go bigger and better with a larger and more powerful replica that'll go much higher number one liberty one of all the people in the world who design amateur rockets mad mike hughes definitely became the most renowned in recent years he was an ardent flat earth believer who had such a lack of trust and imagery taken from rockets and aircraft that he believed the only way he could prove the world was flat was by building his own rocket and collecting the evidence himself despite what you may have think of his motives this led him on a mission that saw him develop some of the most impressive amateur rocket designs ever to be built and on march 24 2018 his dream became a reality on march 24th his steam-powered rocket liberty one launched from a site near emboy in california and reached an altitude of 1875 feet it wasn't as smooth a launch as he would have liked and after plummeting back to earth at speeds of up to 350 miles per hour his parachute wasn't able to slow the vehicle enough to prevent it from becoming severely damaged and causing injuries to himself in the process this launch of course didn't reach anywhere near the height he would need to get in order to prove that the earth was flat and was intended just as the first in a series of launches that would eventually work up to a design that could take him to an altitude of around 68 miles unfortunately he'll never be able to accomplish his dream however because in february of 2020 he attempted another launch and was killed when his rocket crashed in the aftermath of the event his publicist announced that hughes had never believed in the flat earth theory and was just using it to gain media attention and that his true wish was to advance the field of amateur rocketry and to inspire new generations to develop an interest in spacecraft design watch our vehicles playlist for more top 15 videos about amazing vehicles sit back relax and binge watch all of our best vehicle videos

Channel: Top Fives

Views: 1,258,783

Keywords: Homemade Rockets

Id: JKwheRjKtPA

Length: 19min 22sec (1162 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020