Two-stage flight reaches space at over 378,000 feet!
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On August 7, 2026 a two-stage rocket named Dear Rodeo, was launched from the Black Rock dry lake bed in Nevada. It reached a maximum altitude of 378,672 feet above the ground. This means it crossed the Karman line which is the internationally recognized boundary of space. This is the second time the Kate system has been flown into space. The sustainer reached a max velocity of Mach 5.86. This is the highest velocity the Kate system has ever been flown.
The Dear Rodeo team consisted of Tony Pipe, Steve Heller, Nathan Teig, Wyatt Harris and Rowan Jordan. The two-stage rocket had a gross lift off weight of 120 pounds and was a 5.5" P11000 staging to a 3.25" N4100 motor. The flight used a Multitronix Kate-3 system as the sustainer flight computer. It controlled all flight operations including sustainer ignition, parachute deployment, GPS tracking and live telemetry downlink. The Kate-3 system performed flawlessly and maintained a continuous downlink connection during the entire flight all the way from liftoff to touchdown. The sustainer also carried a custom flight computer called PHANTOM developed by Wyatt Harris as a ride along to collect data for future flights. The maximum altitude was confirmed by both flight computers using their independent GPS systems. This is likely the first amateur rocket to use two completely different GPS systems to confirm it reached space. The two systems differed by just 31 feet at apogee. The forward section of the sustainer landed 2.8 miles from the launch pad and was recovered shortly after launch. Unfortunately, an onboard GoPro camera that was housed in the aft section of the sustainer was not recovered. Looking at the flight data, the team believes the sustainer parachute did not fully deploy when the sustainer separated at apogee and instead violently deployed later when it was descending at high speed. That broke the harness loose from the aft section of the sustainer which did not have its own tracker and was never found, even after an extensive search. The parachute was a Disk-Gap-Band (DGB) style which has better stability and softer deployment compared to a full circular parachute. However, that did not help much in this situation. The booster suffered an unknown tracker anomaly and was also not found. The parachute deployed but a search of the area down range failed to locate the booster. The team suspects the booster tracker, which was attached to the shock cord, was damaged by the deployment event. |
Photo by Wyatt Harris
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Moving forward, the team plans to improve the sustainer parachute deployment sequence and house the camera in the same section as the tracker. The booster will use a more resilient tracker to minimize the risk of damage during deployment. They hope to try again next year.
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Rocket name: Dear Rodeo
Length: 13 feet 4 inches Weight: 120 lbs gross liftoff weight Booster motor: P11000 (5.50" diameter) Sustainer motor: N4100 (3.25" diameter) |
Max altitude: 378,672 feet above ground level
Max velocity: 5.86 Mach Max acceleration: 70 G's Time to apogee: 2 minutes, 46.5 seconds Total flight time: 10 minutes, 53.0 seconds |
Launch site: Black Rock Dry Lake, NV
Launch date: Aug 7, 2026 Liftoff: 13:22:21.4 PDT Apogee: 13:25:07.8 PDT Touchdown: 13:33:14.4 PDT |
Liftoff photo by Braden Carlson
Setup and Launch Video
Photo by Wyatt Harris
Photo by Wyatt Harris
Photo by Wyatt Harris
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Photo by Rowan Jordan
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Flight Trajectory
The Multitronix Flight Data Analyzer automatically generates a Google Earth file that shows the flight trajectory. This flight reached 378,672 feet. This view is looking east. You can see the Black Rock dry lake playa it launched from and just how nearly perfectly vertical this flight was! Yellow is the ascent phase and green is the descent phase. Apogee was only displaced 3708 feet from the launch pad location. i.e. just 0.7 miles. This is an extremely vertical trajectory and it speaks to how well the rocket was designed and built. The nosecone with Kate in it was recovered on the playa just 2.8 miles from the launch pad. You can also see Pyramid Lake in the lower right corner for some additional sense of scale.
Google Earth File |
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Download this Google Earth file to zoom in or view the flight trajectory from any angle. You will need to have Google Earth installed on your computer to view this file.
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Gyro Data Animation
The Multitronix Flight Data Analyzer will automatically create an animation of a flight from its 3-axis gyro data. This video of the Dear Rodeo animation plays at real time speed and shows the orientation of the rocket from liftoff to apogee. Note: It only shows the rocket icon as a single stage but the animation includes everything from the two stage flight. Each motor burn is annotated in the right side column when they occur. You will need to expand the view to be able to read all the flight data and event markers in the right side column.
Preflight photo by Braden Carlson
Post flight photo by Braden Carlson
Photo by Wyatt Harris
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This photo was taken after the flight. The titanium tip of the nosecone changed color due to the extreme heat at Mach 5.86.
Titanium develops a blue color when heated in air to roughly 500–600°C (930–1,100°F), and this color remains stable after cooling back to room temperature because it's caused by a permanent oxide layer, not a temperature-dependent glow. Temperature Range Resulting Color
Up to ~300°C (570°F) No change / silver ~350–400°C (660–750°F) Light straw / pale gold ~400–450°C (750–840°F) Dark straw / golden brown ~480–500°C (900–930°F) Bronze/brown transition ~500–566°C (930–1,050°F) Blue begins ~600–650°C (1,110–1,200°F) Purple, then dull grey ~680–700°C+ Bronze/copper |
Photo by Braden Carlson
These two photos show the Multitronix Mx230 Option-25 version of Kate mounted in a 3D printed structure that was installed into the nosecone.
Photo By Wyatt Harris