Well, here it is January 2004 and we are finally underway on the project!.

We have spent quite a bit of time modeling the Arrow in Rocksim, our design tool of choice. It has become obvious to us that there are many personal 'firsts' in this project - things we have never done in our short rocketry career. Some of the more complex characteristics of this rocket are;

• Two stages with airstarts.
• Four engine cluster in upper stage.
• Single bay drogue to multiple main parachute deployment.
• Booster speed brakes.
• Rearward firing first stage parachutes.
• Onboard video recording.

Given all these complexities, we have decided that we had better practice each component first before combining them all in one rocket. We are going to build a modular rocket, one which can add each new level of complexity with each flight. We will fly several 'missions' with this rocket, sort of like the Apollo program of so many years ago, gaining experience as we go.

We are calling this rocket 'Crash Test Dummy'. Seemed appropriate to us :)