Ed: This was taken from an ARocket update by Joel Scotkin on October 8. Some of the information is now outdated.

Xoie (XA0.1e) Major Components

RTK
The Novatel RTK differential GPS worked amazing well. Real 2cm positioning was the main competitive advantage we thought we could nail for the LLC flights, and was clearly worth the investment. Our flights are fully pre-programmed at this point (though the pilot can override or trigger landing if needed).

Xoie
Xoie is pretty much just tanks and attachment points. Same engine module design as on Xombie, but Jon had everything hard coat anodized so its by far the sexiest engine module we’ve ever done – jet black jacket and inner chamber, blue and red anodized fittings. Dry, substantially lighter than Xombie. Fully fueled Xoie is going to wind up in the high 800lb range – its going to be a slow takeoff, even with the engine dial turned to 11, but once in the air we expect plenty of duration margin. (Ed: Since Joel wrote this, we’ve run the engine up to 1000lbf. It has plenty of takeoff thrust.) At this point we just need to finish plumbing and wiring – should be in the air next week.

Xoie Engine Module

Level 2. All that said, we’ve got a lot of work to do in the next three weeks. Ian wants to nail down the gimbal oscillation we hit when descending light, one of the onboard computers likes to overheat and thermally throttle down in the Mojave sun (they run in a sealed box with no ventilation because of the dust, so things can get pretty crispy), Ken’s built a whole bunch of dedicated circuit boards to replace our handmade wiring (the new computer box is looking really clean), we want to add a flightline observer driven “soft abort to safe landing” button in addition to the “kill the whole vehicle” button, etc. And lots of leak checks as the plumbing comes together.

Should be quite a show in the Mojave area last week of October – scheduled for six days, three teams. Best of luck to everyone.