It’s not every day the Danish media is invited to a news briefing about a pending space rocket launch off Bornholm – but that was actually the case today when privately-owned Copenhagen Suborbitals and its two founders told the assembled media of their final preparations for an unmanned test flight.

Peter Madsen and Kristian von Bengtson explained that the flight will be taking place in 10 days time from a platform some 20 nautical miles south of Nexø on Denmark’s Baltic island of Bornholm. The rocket itself, will be towed out to the launch site from just south of Copenhagen using the company’s own submarine.

“Basically three things can happen. We have a crash, we can go supersonic or we can’t launch because of the weather. If it’s a crash, I hope it's a spectacular one,” says Peter Madsen, the one in the group that knows most about rockets.

Dummy in space
Madsen and von Bengtsson have been working on the project since they met two and a half years ago and are convinced that Denmark will become the fourth country in the world to send one of its nationals into space itself.

But for the moment, the rocket will be carrying a dummy – the type that is used to test safety belts – in its small capsule atop the rocket.

The rocket itself has been tested several times over the past two years by Madsen, von Bengtsson and an army of volunteers, and everything points to all systems go – despite the fact that valves, for example, are heated up using a cheap hairdryer and the heat shield is made of cork.

“Normally governments are the ones behind manned space projects. We want to show that space travel doesn’t have to be an expensive affair,” says Madsen.

Nautilus
Madsen’s submarine Nautilus will be towing the rocket out to its launch pad. He’s always been interested in space travel, but turned his interest to the deep for a few years as it was difficult to get permission to launch rockets.

“We couldn’t afford a tug, but we had a submarine,” von Bengtsson says.

Pragmatism of the type of the hairdryers, cork and a home-made submarine is one of the reasons that the entire space project has been kept down to EUR 50,000 – much of that donated by fans. The  rocket has been successfully tested on several occasions.

But the two men’s vision is also that technology should be cheap and accessible, and all of the projects details are Open Source.

“If there’s a company that wants to use our technology to do space toruism from central Jutland, they’re welcome to come and take measurements,” says von Bengtsson.

Navy in
Some 20 companies have been sponsors on the project, providing such things as radar technology, with the authorities too eventually becoming interested in the event.

Initially, Transport Minister Lars Barfoed thought he was on candid camera when he was introduced to the project, but scepticism turned quickly to interest.

The Royal Danish Navy has also shown interest and will be providing a vessel as a control centre as well as reserving a 29 km2, mid-Baltic target range.

“It will only be dangerous for the dummy as we won’t be fuelling the rocket more than to keep it in the area. We can also follow it by radar and simply switch off the engine if something untoward happens,” says Madsen.

Weightlessness
This time, the two intend to send their prototype and 70 kg. dummy between 100 and 140 km up into the air – technically into space.

At that altitude the dummy and rocket will become weightless but still be affected by gravity – so both the rocket and capsule have been given reusable parachutes – if they can be found in the sea.

After three or four problem-free test flights, the intention is to swap the dummy with Peter Madsen as the first Dane in space.

Bold but not stupid
The capsule that is to keep him alive is von Bengtsson’s responsibility. Bengtsson  inside the capsule he has designed, with Madsen looking forward to a manned flight.

“We may be doing something bold, but we don’t want to do anything stupid,” promises von Bengtsson, who has designed landing modules and interiors for NASA.

Madsen says he is looking forward to his turn and says that the mission is far less complicated than the big state-owned projects.

“Our mission is the smallest space mission you can do – just up into space to say that you’ve done it,” says Madsen.

“I often say that we all have to die. I think there are many people who would take the risk to go into space,” he adds.

HEAT rocket
The road to blast-off has taken about two years and required the development of many new technological solutions, including the HEAT rocket that has been tested several times.

On Saturday the two will be officially christening their spaceship prototype Tycho Brahe outside the hangar at Refshaleøen.

And at time of writing, there are 9 days, 19 hours and 44 minutes to blast off – some four to ten years before the two expect Madsen to take his first trip.