Magnetic apogee sensors are useful in situations where extremely off-nominal
behavior occurs. If the rocket does not reach the minimum arming altitude for
a baro-altimeter, then the parachute will never deploy resulting in a very
hard landing. If the rocket has an extreme tip-over event near launch, the
accelerometer will deploy the parachute quite late at a very large horizontal
distance, possibly after the rocket hits the ground. The simplest magnetic
apogee sensor will deploy as soon as the rocket tips over in both cases. I
also like them for unusually-shaped rockets, where it may be hard to find a
clean static port for your baro-altimeter. They are definitely not a cure-all
in all situations as magnetic components in the rocket or the launch pad/rod
can cause undesirable behavior, but they have their uses.
- Robert Galejs
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Ben Brockert
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 10:58 AM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: magnetic apogee sensor
John, what's the use case that requires a magnetic apogee sensor?
There are plenty of barometric or accelerometer-based apogee sensors on the
market, some incredibly small, and they're quite reliable.
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