SpaceForest’s Perun rocket is getting ready for another launch

The first flight of the Perun rocket, constructed by the Gdynia-based SpaceForest company, took place in June. The vehicle then rose to an altitude of 22 kilometers. Now preparations are underway for the second, even more ambitious start.

According to Marcin Sarnowski from SpaceForest, the launch window for the second flight of the Perun rocket is scheduled to open at the beginning of next week.

– We are, in a sense, dependent on the schedule of exercises at the Central Air Force Training Ground in… Ustka (Pomeranian Voivodeship), while the first option for us is Tuesday in the afternoon – he explained.

Sarnowski explained that the launch depends on weather conditions, but after the first flight, company representatives are optimistic. “We have collected a lot of data, made some corrections, now we want to check it all,” he said. He added that the goal will not be the height to which the rocket will rise, but the precision of landing and the movement of the vehicle along the trajectory.

– We created a test scenario to launch this rocket to an altitude of 60 km. Thanks to this, we will also be able to test the appropriate speed of movement in the higher layers of the atmosphere, as well as the appropriate positioning of the rocket during its return to Earth. Of course, we still have our hand on the “red button”. (…) If it turns out that any factors will cause the missile to be directed outside the training ground, we will be forced to interrupt the mission and probably recover it earlier, Sarnowski pointed out.

The SpaceForest representative emphasized that during the previous flight, all systems worked as they should. “It turned out that we need to make some corrections related to controlling the position of the rocket during flight and we will see how it will work during the next test,” he said.

In the meantime, the company made two flights with a smaller rocket, during which all algorithms were tested. SpaceForest hopes that the correction introduced will enable Perun to fly to a higher altitude. Sarnowski also explained that the activation of the mission abort system during the previous flight allowed Perun to be brought back to Earth.

– Thanks to this, we recovered the rocket and after a minor facelift it is ready for further use. Of course, the mission interruption procedure itself causes certain activities in the rocket to be activated, which results in some elements having to be replaced, but this is a matter of minor technical work that we have already carried out – he added.