In a remarkable feat reminiscent of SpaceX’s pioneering achievements, two model rocket enthusiasts have successfully recreated vertical landings on a much smaller scale. Joe Barnard and Aryan Kapoor have spent years refining their designs, achieving what once seemed impossible without the backing of billions of dollars.
Known within the community as BPS. Space, Joe Barnard has invested seven years of his life in perfecting model rockets. Although his background is in music production, not aerospace engineering, Barnard has developed custom components, including a thrust vectoring mechanism that helps his rockets stay vertical for the entire flight. The mechanism uses servo motors to angle the thrust of a rocket engine up to five degrees in any direction, coupled with sensors and custom software to ensure stability. Besides, he is working out the procedure for actively controlling the thrust of solid-fuel rocket engines by using some adjustable ceramic paddles to make very controlled landings.
Meanwhile, Aryan Kapoor, a high school student operating under the handle JRD Propulsion, has also made significant strides in the field. Kapoor’s journey began in August 2021, and after three years of development and numerous setbacks, he achieved a successful vertical landing on May 25. Unlike Barnard’s scale replica of a SpaceX rocket, Kapoor’s design is entirely original. His rocket employs a stack of two solid-propellant motors, one for liftoff and another for descent and landing. Kapoor’s model eschews traditional stability fins in favor of thrust-vector controls using a 3D-printed gimbal mount, allowing for precise adjustments during flight.
Kapoor’s rocket has a custom-tailored onboard computer array, inertial measurement unit, and barometric altimeter. Climb to altitude is sensed by the altimeter, which signals to the rocket’s computer when to switch from the first to the second motor. Descent is controlled. Ingenious rigging of the legs of the rocket with reuse of syringes and rubber bands, all of which act as shock absorbers, absorbs the impact of landing.
Interestingly, Kapoor’s rocket stuck the landing despite an internal issue during ascent. The system failed to eject the first spent propellant stack, thereby adding weight that it did not intend to hold for descent. That meant the rocket bounced slightly, thereby technically leaving it standing twice: once on the way up, and once on the way down.
It simply brings out how the achievements by Barnard and Kapoor prove that model rocketry can innovate and be successful without having huge resources at one’s disposal, reflecting on the work done so far by SpaceX as it continues to motivate yet another generation of new proponents for the effort toward reaching the impossible.
These two space pioneers in the model rocketry world show that with focus, resourcefulness, and perseverance, everything is possible.