The space program · ascends

The family leaves the ground.

Atlas carries a world, Locke renders one, Pioneer drives through one. The Space Program sends a piece of it four hundred feet straight up. A real flying model rocket: you print the nose cone and the fins, build it on a cardboard tube, and light a real motor under it.


Body
BT‑20 19 mm tube
Motor
A8‑3 18 mm Estes
Apogee
~400 ft about 120 m
Recovery
9 in parachute

01

How a flight goes

The whole flight lasts under a minute, and every second of it is real physics. The builder's Launch scene flies the same numbers before you ever strike a match.

  1. Countdown and ignition. The starter lights the A8-3 and it burns for half a second, hard. The rocket leaves the rod doing highway speeds.
  2. Coast. The motor's delay charge smokes for three seconds while the rocket coasts up to around 400 feet, slowing the whole way.
  3. Pop. Right at the top, the ejection charge pushes the nose cone off and the parachute out.
  4. Float home. The whole rocket rides the chute down at a walking pace, drifting on the breeze, ready to fly again in minutes.
Try it before you fly it. The Rocket Builder has a Launch scene: your rocket on a pad, a countdown, and the same motor curve, drag, delay, and chute the real one flies. Hit LAUNCH and watch what your field day will look like.

02

Print it, build it, name it

The rocket follows the Estes Orbis pattern: a cardboard BT-20 body tube carries printed fins and a printed nose cone, so every rocket can look different and fly the same.

// CONFIGURE

Pick your shape

Three nose cones, three fin styles, and a colour for every part. The builder shows the whole rocket in 3D, with the same blueprint mode as the Pioneer garage.

Open the builder →
// PRINT

Download your files

Name your rocket and the zip lands with every printable part, colour-coded filenames, and the full assembly instructions. The tube stays cardboard; you print everything else.

Name one →
// FLY

Fly it for real

Glue, a BT-20 tube, a 9 inch chute, and an A8-3. First flight goes about 400 feet, pops its cone at the top, and parachutes back to your feet.

Launch day →

03

Launch day

Model rocketry has been a safe family hobby for seventy years because everyone follows the same short list of rules. Read it once, follow it always.

Fly by the code. Launch outdoors in an open field, rod pointing straight up, everyone standing back, and never try to catch a rocket coming down. The full NAR Model Rocket Safety Code is one page and worth every line. Kids fly with an adult; motors and starters come from the hobby shop, never the workbench.
You'll need a pad and a controller. Your printed rocket lifts off a launch pad with a 1/8 inch rod, fired from a safe distance by a launch controller — the very Porta-Pad II and Electron Beam set the builder's Launch scene is modelled on. Get the pair from Print and Play →