LAUNCH UPDATE: Big Iron successfully tested!

After over a year of scraping together parts, construction, preliminary tests, and less than 100% successful past tests, we fired Big Iron successfully for the first time on Sunday March 22!

Our first firing tests were “blank fires” without projectiles, to assess how well the Big Iron prototype would stand up to firing. In total there were four ignition attempts. The first and third successfully ignited and combusted, however the prototype failed to fire as the diaphragm did not burst when expected. The second attempt suffered from a mysterious failure to ignite, likely due to a fuse knocked loose. However, the final time was the charm, and we got the boom we were expecting! Look at that jet!