Building an Open-Source Manned Space Rocket in Denmark

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Estimated cost of a shuttle mission: $450 million. Copenhagen Suborbitals estimated launch cost: $63,000

Two Danish amateur engineers and entrepreneurs plan to create a homemade, manned spacecraft to launch into suborbital flight within the next few years.

In 2008 Kristian von Bengston and Peter Madsen founded Copenhagen Suborbitals. They have 20 people around them helping them realize their ambition.

If they succeed it would make Denmark the fourth country in the world to launch a manned rocket into space. They would not be the first privateers, but, unlike companies such as Virgin, SpaceX or Bigelow their budget is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, rather than millions. Motherboard tells the story of Copenhagen Suborbital.

So far, their accomplishments are impressive: their solid-and-liquid-fuel rocket, the HEAT-1X, is the first “amateur” rocket flown with a payload of a full-size crash test dummy, and the first to perform a successful Main Engine Cut-Off, or MECO command, and the first launched from a “low budget” sea-based platform. It’s also the most powerful amateur rocket ever flown.

If you’re trying to go to space, there’s no point in being tight-lipped about it. By making the spaceflight project open-source, Copenhagen Suborbitals were not only able to attract space-crazed specialists to volunteer their human capital in exchange for being part of something new and exciting, but they also raised donations, product support and constructive feedback from avid followers from all over the world. They haven’t specifically said how much they need to raise, but they estimate that a typical launch should eventually cost €50,000, or about $63,000. Today, they continue to raise donations using an IndieGogo campaign.

The tight budget means improvising with components, such as using a hair dryer used to stop a valve from freezing or using a fairground ride at the Tivoli Gardens instead of a centrifuge to test a g-force threshold. There is, reportedly, a deliberate strategy to keep quality low otherwise it will cost too much in terms of time and money to get the project finished. There is no firm date for the manned launch, but the next engine test is scheduled for Dec. 30.

Motherboard has more in its Spaced Out video show on the VICE YouTube station.

Motherboard: Open Source Outer Space: How a Couple of Guys Are Building a Homemade Rocket Ship for the Masses

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