Week 20: Flying Blind No More

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For most of rocketry's history, nobody actually knew a rocket's exact altitude or velocity during flight — just estimates worked out afterward. Onboard electronics changed that completely.

History

The rise of small, affordable onboard electronics let hobby rocketry add real sensors — barometers, accelerometers — directly onto the rocket itself, turning every flight into a source of real recorded data instead of guesswork.

Forces

One of the simplest and most common ways to sense altitude is barometric — measuring air pressure, which predictably decreases as altitude increases.

Math

altitude ∝ decreasing pressure (simplified pressure-altitude relation)

Safety Note

Altimeter-triggered recovery devices are required to have redundancy — a backup deployment charge — under NAR code, so a single sensor or electronics failure can't prevent safe recovery.