Alasdair Allan has posted on hackster.io an interesting interview with Joe Barnard about the future of Model Rocketry: an hobby that never got the same market success of RC cars. In the last years the success of SpaceX has totally disrupted the heavy launcher market. However in contrast to that rapid pace of development in orbital launchers, the “hobby” rocketry scene has been far more static.
In an age when you can put an open source cubesat into orbit, or build your own ground station for a few hundred dollars, what’s happening in the model rocketry scene?
Barnard and his company Barnard Propulsion Systems, has released Signal board, a thrust vectoring system for model rockets similar to that used by real full-sized rockets, in the past.
Barnard is pushing forward with his plans for propulsive landings, and a building scale model of the Falcon Heavy. If you are interested in the evolution of the hobby model rockets here is the complete interview.