First Sugar Rocket Motor Burn Test goes wrong!

A series of frames shows what went wrong during those early seconds of burn.

Am making my very first model rocket. So far I have developed my flight computer, thrust vector control mount and designed the model of the rocket. With most of it done, I decided it was time to attach a rocket motor and launch it off to the moon!

Tejas — Flight Computer

Well, hold that thought!

Rocket motors aren’t a thing, in India. Boom! What do I do now?

• Import it. Good luck with customs
• Amazon had a few Estes C-7 rocket motors, but the reviews didn’t give me confidence.
• Do It Yourself? (Who would have thought it could have wrong?)

Enter Sugar Rockets.

At the time, they seemed like the best alternative to commercial rocket motors. True, if you do not consider the amount of testing it takes to perfect the motor performance and the safety hazard when amateurs handle it. With all that, I sill give it try.

The Rocket Fuel Recipe:

The Recipe is quite popular on youtube. So .. Go Figure!

All things in metric

What Went Wrong?

Infographic of the Burn Test

The poor clay cladding at the ends couldn’t handle the extreme chamber pressure. They got loose and let out out rocket fuel. I was extremely cautious about the clay cladding. The cladding was put in with extreme force, turns out that's not enough. This halts the development with further design changes.

Check out the slow-mo video!

What did I learn?

Thanks to the great people on /r/Rocketry, I have learned not to trust whatever youtube tells you.

• PVC is a bad idea. It can explode. The shrapnels could wreak havoc on nerds.
• What chamber pressure are you designing for? What Chamber Pressure am I expecting? What’s the nozzle throat area? What is the Kn range?
• Testing the rocket motor before burn test.
• The manufacturing process needs to see the light of professionalism.
• Ignition from the range — E-Match

So, that's it.

I gotta get back to it.

Stay tuned.