Loki Research LLC.

Breaking news! I just got word today from a customer that they had a failure with a Loki Research motor. Yes, you heard right, we had a verified CATO! I believe this is the 3rd reload/motor failure I've had reported to me this year. This one was a J-396 Spitfire. It appears that it may have been an aging or storage issue perhaps as one of the remaining grains show a crack down the bore. The date of manf was Nov 10th 2019. If you have any Spitfire reloads with DOM around this time frame, please take the time to inspect each propellant grain for any cracks or anomalies as a precaution before loading. Thanks and fly high.

Has anyone noticed the blue 76mm Loki hardware at the top of the X-Bow home page? That's a custom 54mm nozzle carrier I made for them too.

X-Bow Systems We specialize in additive manufacturing of solid rocket motors. We’ve brought space to the table through a cutting-edge, end-to-end experience across building, testing, and launching.

The graphite nozzle polishing service is available again. It can be found at the bottom of each 38, 54 & 76mm hardware page of our website. I finally found this video I took a few years ago too. Check it out!

Loki Research 38mm Nozzle Slag The slag on this motor doesn't stick to the nozzle surface.

FYI, I've add the Loki nozzle standard exit diameters to the TECH INFO page here.

www.lokiresearch.com NOZZLE NUMBERS:  Every nozzle is engraved with a number indicating the throat size in 64ths of an inch.  For example, a #24 nozzle has a 24/64" = 0.375" throat diameter.  Isn`t that nice?  No more guessing what that nozzle in the bottom of your range box is.

I got some more nozzles finished up for a dealer and some customers. I need to figure out what to do whit this polishing thing. If I open up the throat, I have to do it to some extent on the newly machined surfaces and I just hate to leave it rough. With the way the cost of graphite has risen, I started doing it as a "thank you" for customers still buying them. Still, it takes a toll on my hand, fingers, and forearm after doing this many, not to mention the extra time and mess it takes to do this. I either need to start charging for it again, or just raise the price for what I'm delivering anyway. I just hate sending out something that I know I can improve that much better.

Here's a sweet pair and #38 54mm nozzles going out to one of our very loyal university customers along with some liner sets and a pair of our new Experimental Bulkheads.

I've almost got this hardware order together, still missing some nozzle washers and the liners. This is all going to a rather large high school out west. They've got a nice assortment in this years order.

Here's a great video Chuck McNeice put together on Project Sasquatch and the N-5500 demo flight.

Huge 14.5 foot scratch-built rocket flight! "Sasquatch" is a scratch-built 14.5-foot, 200 pound rocket constructed by Bryce Chanes and flown at LDRS 41, B**g State Park, Wisconsin. Bryce will tell us a...

Sixteen 76mm Loki Blue propellant grains, all hand cut and within +/-1.2 grams, or less than 0.2% of total mass.

76mm Loki Blue grain weights I'm weighing 76mm Loki Blue grains to check for accuracy and consistency. All are hand cut and the faces concaved by yours truly and are within +/-1.1 gram o...

I'd say +/-0.65 grams is pretty darn good. Each grain weighed here is cut and the faces slightly concaved, all by hand. This is where the minor weight deviations happen. All cut while jamming to the Cornwalls. The beat makes the work flow smoothly, and apparently accurately too.

54mm Loki White grain weights Here I am weighing several 54mm grains to check for consistency. Each grain is hand cut and the faces slightly concaved, also done by hand, and that is where...

This past weeks haul of 76mm grains. There's lots more not shown here in 54mm and 38mm. Taken a few hours ago and now about all of these but the 76/8000 reload grains are cut up. I just put lots of reloads back in stock as well, but most of it still needs to be bagged/boxed/packaged up. Lots to do on the 54mm still and then I'll put a few more white reloads back in stock.

Thank you for burning Loki Research propellant in your High Power rockets!

I made a new friend and maybe a new customer this weekend at LDRS 41. I spoke with Bart Johlls for a bit Friday and then about 45min or more Saturday. He has been in rocketry for a very long time, TRA # 1300 something. By the time we parted ways, he had presented me with a most unexpected and absolutely incredible gift, a Rocket Flight H-220 Silver Streak from his treasure chest. I was/am blown away! Absolutely unbelievable. Thank you so very much Bart. You're a very gracious person.

N-5500 Loki White liftoff!

People sometimes ask why the longest motor cases cost SO much. The answer is that you always go through more material trying to get each long case to have ALL good material. If there is one bad spot found, the entire case has to be cut down into something shorter. It's often very hard to see defects in the raw tubing until you get it cut up, cleaned up, or both.

I was trying to add 4 more 98/23000 cases to the crate to help fill it up. We had to cut a total of 6 cases out of 2 lengths of tubing. One of them had an inclusion on the ID about 8" down from the end of the case. Another has a very deep gouge and inclusion on the OD, smack dab in the center of the case. It only visibly popped out after getting scotch-bright and shined up on the lathe.

So the cost of a manufactured item doesn't only include the material in each part, but all the other material you have to go through, inspect, cut down, throw away and/or re-cut a 2nd, 3rd, 4th time etc. until you get all the parts you need to make. Out of this run of cases, there have been five 52" cases so far that I've rejected for machining. There were also others from shorter cases too.

So it seems that once again we are forced to find another Type III hardcoat anodize vendor. They have raised their minimums to a ridiculously high price. This has always been a hard find for a reasonable cost. The tanks have to be long enough for our really long motor cases and they have to have blue dye in these long tanks. Easy to find for small parts, but not 5-6 foot long parts

If we switched back to Type II anodize I'd have a lot more vendors to pick from for a much more reasonable cost.
Please comment below your thoughts,... good move, bad move or otherwise. Thank you.

Today is a very good day. Thank you Lord. The Loki White CTI 98mm 6gXL test was picture perfect. I could not be more pleased with the results, and there's still room to add a bit more performance and higher average thrust. It took a lot of time, energy, materials and trips out to the test stand to get to this point today, and because of all that hard work my performance estimates were spot on the money. I only wish the stand was higher off the ground because it cut the flame plume in half. Even still the help was tickled pink to witness it.

The motor tested out to be an N-5386 with a 3.65 second burn time and a total delivered impulse of 19,660.1 Ns at 760ft ASL. After a few slight improvements maybe I can bump that up a hair.

Propellant weight was 9,117.5g, loaded/assembled motor weight was 14,818g and burnout weight was 5,578.6g. Time to finish the rest of the tooling needed to make more. Some days this job is much, much better than others. https://youtu.be/4GFa-wR3YUA

Like I said before, it's been a long day, Wednesday. Custom 76mm single use nozzle order ready to go.

I got the full scale Loki White test motor for the CTI 98mm 6gXL hardware dry assembled last night for the first time and weighed. Hoping to test it in the next week or two, weather permitting. I had some unfortunate delays so we won’t be getting this certified in time for the Spaceport Cup this year, but look for it next year for sure.
Here’s a little preliminary data for you to digest. Hardware length is from the back of rear closure to tip of forward closure, not including the nozzle or eye-bolt.
Loki AT CTI
Motor reload N-5 # # # N-4000 N-5800
Total Impulse 19,650 Ns(est.) 18,184 Ns 20,148 Ns
Total Wt. 14,860g 16,375g 14,826g
Propellant Wt. 9,182g 9,800g 9,021g
Burn time 3.5 sec (est.) 4.6 sec 3.5 sec
Hardware length 51.5” 57.24 51.5”

Ours pre-fire & theirs post-fire with a .180" larger throat. Time to bond some grains.

We've got another order of custom test nozzles going out tomorrow. These are a bit larger than 98mm with 4 different sizes, two of each. Does your project need custom ISO molded graphite parts made? Send us a detailed drawing with quantities needed and we'll send you a quote. Just remember that quantity drives pricing the most.

All 38/1200 reloads are now being sold as Plugged Motors with tracking smoke only. No Delay time or motor ejection.

38/1200 reloads may still be used with Delay/Ejection style bulkheads without drilling the delay, but the plugged bulkhead will guarantee no delay blow-by failures. This is a rare failure indeed, but changing to a plugged bulkhead will completely eliminate this possibility. The wide range flight performance with different motor/rocket combinations also makes getting accurate delay times for all flights difficult at best. With the wide variety of inexpensive altimeters available, it has always been recommended that you use electronics for recovery deployment with these reloads.

We are in the process of updating all instructions and will upload them to the website when completed.

Say hello to our newest precision instrument at Loki Research. It's a big boy. Don't you just love Blue?

FYI, it will be at least Thursday, maybe Friday at the earliest before we can get any orders out. It's been 2 days of sleet and freeing rain here, almost 2" now. I went up to get the mail this evening at the top of the hill and I only saw one set of tracks anywhere. We haven't had any carriers or trash service the past 2 days and we probably won't see any tomorrow either. Thanks for your patience.

Just in case anyone is wondering what a 54mm Loki case can take. I came across this photo I took in 2014 when hydro testing the phenolic on our 54mm Single Use Nozzles. They'll take quite a lot!