Starfire at LDRS 26

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Photo by Neil McGilvray

Starfire was launched on Saturday morning, July 14, 2007 at LDRS 26 under almost ideal weather conditions. It is 12.5 feet long, 7.7 inches in diameter and flew on an Animal Motor Works M2200 "Skidmark" motor.

Starfire reached a peak altitude of 4,145 feet and deployed two large parachutes for a picture perfect recovery. It landed safely away from the flight line but still on the dry lake bed. It suffered no damage from the flight.

Starfire carries a digital camcorder for capturing video as well as two digital still cameras for taking aerial photos. Those photos, the onboard video and lots of ground based photos of the launch are presented below. There are also lots of other photos and videos from other Starfire launches at the links in the table below.

More Starfire Links
Starfire construction drawings and photos
Starfire photos	Starfire videos
Starfire at XPRS 2006	Starfire at XPRS 2005

Starfire at LDRS 26

Click on any image below to see a larger version of it.

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2007	Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2007
Scott Carter and Nadine Burgemeister helped me load Starfire onto the launch pad. The booster section is the first part to go onto the launch rail.

Next the body tube is mated to the booster section and the mirror hood on the body tube is carefully aligned with the camcorder lens hole in the booster.

After that the two onboard Missile Works altimeters are armed and then Starfire is pushed into the vertical launch position.

Photos by Vern Knowles

The animated sequence at the right shows still images taken by my Canon 20D digital camera from a tripod setup very close to the launch pad. The camera captures five frames per second. This is a good look at the liftoff but of course it is missing the sound.

Link to larger size animation

(1.5 MB file)

Photo by Vern Knowles

Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2007	Photo by Tsolo T. Tsolo from RocketShots! © 2007
	Photo by Neil McGilvray from ROCKETS Magazine

Photo by Ray LaPanse

Wow!! The liftoff was an awesome spectacle of smoke, fire, sparks and a deafeningly loud crackling roar from the big skidmark motor. This has to be one of the most entertaining motors ever made.

A shower of sparks rained down from the liftoff of Starfire.

After three seconds the M2200 Skidmark motor burned-out and Starfire coasted to apogee.

Photo by Vern Knowles	Photo by Vern Knowles
The parachutes and recovery harness for Starfire were all neatly laid out on the dry lake bed when it landed. It sure was convenient to drive straight to the landing site to retrieve it.

Starfire Aerial Photos

Starfire carried a camera module in the forward payload bay. The camera module is literally dumped out at apogee and the two digital cameras begin taking lots of aerial photos during the ride down on the parachute.

Click here to see information about the camera module.

Click on any of these aerial photos to see a larger version of it.

Here Starfire hangs in the air about 4000 feet high. The booster section (upper left) is supported by a parachute that is out of view at the top left of the photo. The camera module and the nosecone are supported by another parachute also out of view at the top center of the photo. The body tube section hangs between these two parachutes on the long lengths of yellow and red tubular nylon.

This is a bit lower in altitude and looking to the west. The small town of Jean Nevada can be seen in the distance in all three of these adjacent photos. Jean is mostly just two big hotels with casinos. It's on the I-15 freeway that runs between Las Vegas and southern California. Jean is 4.0 miles away from the launch site on a direct line.

The wide angle panoramas above and below were created by merging multiple overlapping images into one high resolution photo.

Starfire just before touch down.

Onboard Video

Starfire carried a digital camcorder in the payload bay at the top of the booster. The camcorder is a Sanyo HD1 Xacti. (model VPC-HD1) The beauty of this particular camera is that it does not use tape. It records directly to an SD memory card. This is much more tolerant of acceleration and high vibration than a tape based camcorder. This particular model can also record in HD video. (1280x720 pixels)

Click here to see the camcorder setup

The camcorder looks out through a hole in the side of the booster coupler. The main body tube slides over this coupler and has a mirror mounted that allows the camcorder to look down the side of the rocket during launch. At apogee the body tube separates from the booster allowing the camcorder to look straight out to view the horizon and surrounding scenery as it descends on chute.

Onboard Flight Video

Video by Vern Knowles

This video was captured by the onboard camcorder inside Starfire.

View High Resolution MPEG2 version (31 MB)

View QuickTime version (30 MB)

View Low Res Windows Media Player version (8 MB)

If you are having trouble viewing this video, then click here for help.

Link to other Starfire videos from other launches

This is one image from the onboard video that shows the flight line far below. The video starts out nice and clear but as Starfire climbed to apogee it passed through a layer of dust in the air. That dust caused this image to show an overall brownish tint.

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