HEAT 1X Tycho Brahe

HEAT-1X Tycho Brahe was a Danish rocket and spacecraft project of the volunteer group Copenhagen Suborbitals, built with the goal of the first amateur crewed spaceflight. The system pairs the HEAT-1X rocket, which burns liquid oxygen with polyurethane in a hybrid design, with a 300 kilogram capsule named Tycho Brahe. The stack was launched from Sputnik, a floating platform in the Baltic Sea. The HEAT-1X rocket itself was meant for a short atmospheric test flight to about 16 km, while a later HEAT-1 version was planned to lift the capsule to the edge of space with an apogee above 100 km. The maiden flight took place on 3 June 2011 and reached an apogee of only about 3 km, though it was judged a success for a first attempt, with the Tycho Brahe capsule as its payload. It stands as one of the best-known privately built amateur space vehicle efforts.