On the 5th April 2025 we at LURA launched Gryphon 2 at Fairlie Moor Road Launch Site (operated by SARA). This was the second and final flight in our testing programme in the run up to our attempt to break the UK amateur altitude record in June.

The stats:

• 20,413ft
• Mach 1.53
• 1150mph

Because Sunride (University of Sheffield rocketry team) set the record in the US, this was the highest* altitude of any amateur single-stage rocket launched from British soil, ever. (Well not really. It won’t technically count, more on that later.)

The good

Honestly, this was easily one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I was operating the ground station and so was stationed as close to the rocket as was allowed by UKRA and you could really feel the launch in your gut. Numbers like “0 to 1000mph in 2.4 seconds” sound insane but seeing this in person it’s hard to put into words.

This was the 4th attempt at launching G2 in this configuration. The first time was scrubbed at the launch site due to an avionics/recovery issue, the second time was called for weather, third time also called off for weather. It was incredibly surreal to see this thing actually launch again. It was a really windy day (20mph+ winds) and I personally wasn’t certain we were going to launch until T-5 seconds.

At about T+5 seconds I stopped staring at this thing in the air and actually did my job at the ground station. We hit max-Q at T+2.7 seconds but the data trickled in over the telemetry system much slower than that, so I didn’t get to see that we’d passed mach 1 until maybe T+10. For some reason I shouted this in excitement as if it was a surprise, it’s not like the motor wasn’t going to send the thing that fast. It was pretty cool getting to call in the apogee and drogue deploy reading though.

The bad

This launch, as cool as it was, could only really be considered a partial success. The second stage of the parachute system is supposed to deploy at a fixed altitude of 300m. But I watched as the altitude ticked under 300m and the voltage readings indicated that no parachute had deployed. This was confirmed by visuals too.

Because of this, the rocket hit the ground at about 40m/s. That’s what we call suboptimal. Luckily the ground it hit was a deep bog which somewhat softened the landing. All things considered the rocket was in remarkable condition for this landing, the avionics system was perfectly fine, none of the expensive recovery components were damaged, and the nose cone was in perfect condition. The same could not be said for our aft tube or the very expensive brand new fin can.

Nothing we can’t fix, and UKRA are happy for us to go for the record in June. Unfortunately they are not happy to put our rocket on the big leaderboard. So congratulations Damien Hall for keeping your record from April 2005. (Fun fact: That is the same Damien Hall that was on Top Gear multiple times, for both the Shuttle-Reliant-Robin and the Mini with rocket skis.)

The data

The cool photos and video