Danish firm develops one-man booster rocket

Led by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, Copenhagen Suborbitals is currently testing a series of booster rockets that will eventually launch a man into space in a small pressurised capsule called the Tycho Brahe-1.

The first of the outfit’s so-called liquid-oxygen powered Hybrid Exo Atmospheric Transporter, or HEAT, boosters will be launched off the coast of Denmark between 30 August and 13 September from a barge in the Baltic Sea. The booster will burn for about 60 seconds, enabling engineers to validate and test its performance.

Eventually, the engineers plan to use a similar booster to launch the Tycho Brahe-1 capsule into a suborbital trajectory.

During the first phase of the flight, the booster will separate from the capsule, after which the capsule will travel through a zero-g parabola, before re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. Then, a drogue parachute, followed by main parachutes, will be deployed to carry the capsule and its occupant safely back to earth.