Published: Nov. 21, 2018

Jeff in the Composites Lab

Thanks to the hard work of COBRA's structures and propulsion teams, Copperhead is almost complete! Copperhead is the successor to our previous rocket, Ol' Murph. We anticipate launching Copperhead to approximately 11,000 feet for the first time this December.

Jeff in the Composites Lab 2

Copperhead's airframe is a four-piece assembly built from carbon fiber (wound by us on our automated filament winder), aluminum, G10, and the fiberglass nosecone from the rocket formerly known as Old Murph. Copperhead will also be flying one of our highly advanced custom-built 4-inch motors - which just passed a hydrostatic test up to 1000 psi (approximately 70 atmospheres of pressure). We extend our gratitude to Hans Green of CU's JILA for his assistance in fabricating part of the motor.

Hydrostatic test of 4-inch motor casing

We will be launching our crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of IREC 2019 shortly after we launch Copperhead, so keep an eye out!