PARS president, Howard Smith, has built a new rocket project, code named Mercury 1.

There is nothing secret about this project. It's significance is that it is the first rocket he is building purely for himself, and, with the intention of getting as high as possible, within limits of PARS current development capabilities.

Since I don't believe we have the skills to recover a rocket that goes much higher than 6000 feet, 1 mile is the target.

To achieve this, he is building a minimum diameter 38mm rocket, designed to fly on 3Grain, 4Grain and 5Grain Pro 38 motors. This is harder than it sounds. Howard is having considerable trouble with stability calculations.

A flight of the Mark I Mercury at CROCK, June 2007. Unfortunately, the rocket proved to be sensitive to wind conditions, so some re-design was necessary. The new rocket is called Mercury 1, Mark II.

Here is the re-design of Mercury 1 Mark II.

The rocket is five and half feet long, has an empty lift off weight of about 3.1 lbs and isdesigned to be stable on I205, I285 and J286 motors.

To stand any chance of recovering this rocket, it has dual recovery and onboard radio tracking using PerfectFlite MAWD and Traxa electronics. I might add a Loc8Tor and Audio Beacon as well.

Being minimum diameter, the electronics lie along the airframe, in a sealed compartment about 16 inches in length. This is rather too heavy, and too long, taking up valuable internal space for parachutes, and sitting too high up on the rocket, increasing calibers. Not a great design. I will do better next time around, having learnt these lessons.

One remaining concern is that as the fuel burns, calibers will increase as CoG moves forward, and the rocket will arch over, reducing apogee and making recovery much harder.

Mercury 1 will only be flown under the most perfect weather conditions.

The PARS gang - ready for a test flight of Mark I. This
test showed the rocket was over-stable. Modifications
were made, but the second test showed the high fins
made the rocket sensitive to wind conditions. This is
now being changed for the design of Mark II.

Apogee Prediction on I205 is 3997 feet.
Apogee Prediction on I285 is 5278 feet.

That's close enough to a mile for me! A J286 will take
it well over a mile, if we dare.

Roughly what the Mark II rocket will look like on the
pad and in flight.

There is no intention to try to beat any UK height
record. The current record for H Class is 7979 feet held
by Ben Jarvis of MARS, and for I Class 9199 feet held
by Ady Waters of EARS. These are, in my opinion,
records well beyond the current capability of PARS.

All members of PARS are welcome to assist with
the build of this rocket. Days when this is possible
will be announced on the mailing list.