Older Sirius Rocketry news and fun is archived on this page...as it gets larger, it may take longer to load, but older news tidbits are here for posterity. Click the "News" button at the left to get back to the main news page. Updated November 8, 2008 Our initial and long-awaited stock of Moldin' Oldies cones is now available at the Sirius Rocketry website, just in time for the winter "building season"! The initially-available cones include some of the most in-demand cones from the Moldin' Oldies inventory, including the Saturn capsule and fairing sets, which were some of Mike's very first castings. As many of the original molds were rather worn out, new Saturn molds were made, and several other molds are in the process of being re-made. More molds are being re-done as time permits, so please check back frequently as we will be adding cones to the site as we get the molds done and more cones made. Please note that because of Mike's agreement with the original kit makers and our willingness to honor that same agreement in taking over that we cannot name the specific kits these cones belong to, just the part numbers. However Scott Hansen's Ye Olde Rocket Shoppe has tons of resources for lovers of the old kits (including nose cone/kit lists) that can help you with matching nose cones with the kits they belonged to. It is a great resource, and there are also other member-experts that can help you at Scott's Ye Olde Rocket Forum, another resource I highly recommend! A post on the forum will find lots of people willing to help you. Note also that these cones are reproduced for private, personal use in "cloning" your favorite old and unavailable kits, but are not to be used in any commercial kits. More cones will be added to the site as they are molded, and the total selection will expand with time. Please keep in mind that each cone takes about 15-20 minutes to make and as such is priced accordingly. Casting resin, being a petro-based product has also increased exponentially the last year. Also, making new molds is expensive, and that cost has to be spread over the amount of cones that can be produced from that mold before it wears out. Thus, if you can also order some other products while you order your cone, that helps immensely! back to top | back to main news page Updated August 26, 2008 Thank you for making this year even better than the last. In 2008, we will see the 10th anniversary of Sirius Rocketry as a concept/company, and in late 2008-2009, we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the company as the official Sirius Rocketry, LLC. I ask that you join the crowd, and spread the word about Sirius Rocketry when you can, wherever you can. We have several new products planned for this fall, and also have taken over the Moldin' Oldies product line, which will slowly become available in our online store, a little later than planned, mainly because many of the molds have had to be redone, and also because some of our kits have sold much better than anticipated, and mucho time has been spent in re-stocking them, which takes time from everything else.... Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated December 5, 2007 The Sirius Rocketry S.S. Cestris is finally here and available in our online store! Everyone has been so patient in waiting for this one, I will not go into too much depth here for a day or two. Just check out the S.S. Cestris page, and then go to the online store to order yours! And don't forget to come join us at NARCON (article below)! Happy Holidays! Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated December 4, 2007 Sirius Rocketry will be attending NARCON for the fifth year in a row as NARCON 2008 returns to Rochester, Minnesota for the second year in a row March 14-16, 2008. Special guests: Vern and Gleda Estes! Mark your calendar for this event, and check out the NARCON 2008 website for details and to register. Sirius Rocketry will again be in the vendors section, and providing door prizes for the event. We would love to see you there! Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated December 2, 2007 Days like these remind me why Sirius Rocketry may not forever be located in Wisconsin! Too much snow and too much snow removal this weekend! It reminds me how winter in the upper Midwest to me has always been building season. What else is there to do all imprisoned in a house all winter but spend some time on your favorite hobbies! Watch this space. Looks like this will be the week for a few neat things here! Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated November 22, 2007 Happy Thanksgiving! Halftime of the Detroit-Green Bay Thanksgiving game, and a few moments to post an update on the news page. We are very thankful here at Sirius Rocketry, since you have made 2007 our best year ever! Just a short time away from the release of our S.S. Cestris kit. Stay tuned here for updates! Been spending an awful lot of time in the shop getting this one ready for the Christmas season, and it looks like we will hit the mark. So check here after the Thanksgiving weekend for more information. Have a great holiday, don't eat too much, and...halftime is over...back to the festivities! Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated November 7, 2007 What a crazy summer and last couple of months or so.... Amazing how real life, and having teenagers, and real jobs and (did I say) real life can sometimes sidetrack things! There is LIGHT at the end of the tunnel for the S.S. Cestris kit. I have been a "vacuforming machine" the last month, and there is now a huge pile of the vacuformed nose cones that will be going into the final kits this week. The S.S. Cestris manuals are now finished after many revisions in both the kit and the manual, parts are coming in, and I am spending every minute of my spare time away from the real job getting the parts and kits ready for final bagging. I also had to make sure that everything was just right. I anticipate the kit being available in plenty of time for Christmas, most likely around Thanksgiving. But, like Scotty on Star Trek, I should probably double my estimates on times to appear as a "miracle worker" when they come in in half the time of the estimate! Maybe quadruple them! :-) Outside of the Saturn V and the Atlantis, this has been one of the most complex kits to produce yet, in part because of the complex shape of the nose cone, and the tweaking that had to be done to make such a complex shape fly. Thus it took a little longer than both you and I expected, but it will be well worth the wait! To answer a question or two: The nose cone WILL be available seperately, as a replacement for the Cestris, and for scratchbuilding purposes. More "Command Cone" kits are being produced than Cestris kits, so there will be extras available. Keep in mind that since the "Command Cone" is a vacuform kit, some assembly will be required! The "Command Cone" was designed from the ground up to be bagged seperately with its own instruction manual, so that makes it easy to offer it as a separate kit, and we will. The "Command Cone" will fit a BT-55 tube. Final costing is being done on the Cestris kit, and the prices of raw materials keep changing, so we have not arrived on a final price as of yet, but it should be in line with our other kits of the same complexity. Lots of emails have come our way as the excitement builds about this kit, and I have to answer most questions here for now. Some of the other features of the kit will be mentioned here shortly. The main answer to most questions is to tune in right here on the news page for the latest! And while you are waiting, please look at our other offerings and order what you can to support our development of even more great stuff from Sirius Rocketry! Gotta get back to the Sirius Skunk Works now! David back to top | back to main news page Updated August 22, 2007 While you are waiting for the latest kit and products from Sirius Rocketry, why don't you try a little social networking rocketry style at Our Planet, Rocketry Planet's latest addition to the increasingly dominant rocketry portal. We'll even be stopping there from time to time! Back to the shop! Dave back to top | back to main news page Updated July 25, 2007 It has been a fantastic summer, and indeed a very BUSY one! Not only have we been hitting as many launches as we can in the local area, but we are still preparing to go to yet another national event to complete our NAR Trifecta as we go to NARAM this weekend for the sport rocketry weekend. We head to Eat Cheese or Fly the weekend after that, and a few other events in the weeks following. The new kit is ALMOST into final production, and we are posting news here now as it gets closer to release. As a small manufacturer, we have to now refer questions about the release of the new kit to this page. While we appreciate all the interest, we need to focus our efforts on getting it ready to be delivered to those who are eagerly awaiting it. .Hope you understand! Back to the production line! Stay tuned here for details! back to top | back to main news page Updated June 7, 2007 We are extremely happy to be adding selected Semroc kits to the store! The first batch is coming in this week, with more to be added in the future. Many of the Semroc kits fit our "likes" here at Sirius, like scale and cool sci-fi type kits. We have added a few of their fantastic builders' scale models, as well as one of their very latest. If you are not familiar with Semroc kits, you should be! Stop by the store and check them out! back to top | back to main news page Updated June 5, 2007 Had a great time with old friends and meeting new ones at the NSL 2007 in Muncie, Indiana this past weekend. It was great putting some faces to names I already knew, and once again having great times with the friends I have made over the years. Even managed to see a couple of people for the first time in over ten years! The Sirius Rocketry booth was between our friends at Flis Kits and our other friends at Balsa Machining Service. I don't know if we all worked more or talked more, it always seems when the vendors get together there is endless good conversation. A big thank you to all of those who stopped by to say hello, and another huge thank you to the Rocketeers of Central Indiana for hosting the NSL this year! Sirius Rocketry will also be attending the sport flying weekend at NARAM this summer, making it a year where we will have been able to attend all three national NAR events! We hope to see you there! back to top | back to main news page Updated March 13, 2007 Had a great time at NARCON 2007, and would like to thank MASA for hosting such a fun NARCON. It was great meeting some of you for the first time, some of our customers face-to-face for the first time, and also meeting up with a lot of old friends. Stay tuned for some pictures from NARCON as soon as we get caught up! In the meantime, I promised this young NARCON participant a place on our web page! back to top | back to main news page Updated February 8, 2007 Sirius Rocketry starts the 2007 road show at NARCON 2007, March 9-11 in Rochester Minnesota. This time, celebrating 50 years of the NAR and Model Rocketry. We will be attending NARCON for the 4th year in a row with our store in tow. We are working hard to have some neat things to show you at NARCON. We look forward to seeing you there! Among new product introductions planned for this year, Sirius Rocketry is also planning to attend several other national events in 2007. We will announce them here as we firm up our 2007 schedule. back to top | back to main news page Updated January 4, 2007 Happy New Year and THANKS for a fantastic 2006! We're working hard in the Sirius labs to bring you more great product in 2007! back to top | back to main news page Updated November 24, 2006 Hope you have had a happy Thanksgiving! Look for some after-Thanksgiving sale items in the online store, one day only! back to top | back to main news page Updated October 28, 2006 We may have been quiet lately, but that means we are hard at work on more new kits we have in development! The Interrogator kits have been flying out our door as well. Spent a couple of weeks working on a new online store format, that should allow us to add more features as time goes on. We'll also be running some specials for the holiday season, so stay tuned! back to top | back to main news page Updated May 15, 2006 A Sirius amount of NEW! It is not often that we add this many new news announcements to our page at one time, but here we are with a whole lotta new! Scroll on! NEW! Interrogator and NEW! Mid Power Interrogator Our new kit releases are here! The standard Interrogator and the Mid-Power Interrogator. Same bird, two different scales. One for A-C motors and the other for C-F motors! Futuristic near-space fighter styling and, like the Refit U.S.S. Atlantis, LOADED with full-color decals to add lots of detail! Read all about the new Interrogator here and the Elite Line Mid-Power Interrogator here! NEW! Detail Decal Sheets #2 and #3      In addition to our highly popular Outlander/Mars Lander and our Detail Decal Sheet #1, we have added Detail Decal Sheets #2 and #3. The unique feature of both of these decal sheets is that all the images are printed in five different scales. The smallest images would scale to a BT-5, next sizes up then fit BT-20, BT-50, BT-55, and finally the largest scale to BT-60. Of course you can use these detail decals however you wish, that is what they are for. But with each sheet, you could build the same model in five different scales! Detail Decal Sheet #2 has roll patterns in black and red, and UNITED STATES block letter markings in the different sizes. Detail Decal Sheet #3 has umbilical hatch markings, warnings, hatches, CG/CP markings, and one of the most requested items: cockpit window markings in different shapes and scales! As always, these decals are full-color, crisp and detailed waterslide decals! Order them now in our (yup - more new stuff!) new and improved online store! NEW! Re-designed and Improved Webstore! Next, there is our re-designed and improved webstore. Our upgraded software allows us to do things we could not do with the old store. At the same time as the upgrade we also had the opportunity to give the store a new, cleaner look. We have also added some new items to the store, added some tips and information, and will be adding even more in the future. So, if you have not before, come on in and shop around! NEW! Sirius Rocketry Branded Merchandise And if that all is not news enough, Sirius Rocketry branded merchandise is now available through our friends at Cafepress! Shirts, caps, mugs, mousepads, bumper stickers and even more items coming soon! This store is a separate store from our online shopping, so make sure you come back here when done! Click the image below, or here to go to our branded item store! May 9, 2006 Don't forget about the National Sport Launch this Memorial Day Weekend in Texas! We NEED to get your photos and hear your stories on the Cochran Challenge going on there! If you can't be in Texas that weekend, well then try to be in Washington for Fire in the Sky 2006! Sirius Rocketry is throwing in a bunch of stuff for both events, and although we cannot attend, we want to hear all the coverage of these events you can send, and who gets what! And if you cannot make it to either event, well, we just may have to have you here to grill Wisconsin brats and talk rockets! Congratulations to Bob Cox, winner in the EMRR Big and Fat Virtual Rocket Contest. He chose our prize for his pick of prize. Congratulations Bob! back to top | back to main news page April 11, 2006 Stay tuned, some neat things coming in the next few weeks... back to top March 15, 2006 Sirius Rocketry, fresh back from one national event (NARCON 2006, report and pictures below) is sponsoring another event this year, at the National Sport Launch, which happens Memorial Day weekend, May 27th and 28th, 2006, and is hosted by the Dallas Area Rocket Society (DARS). Sirius Rocketry is sponsoring one of the fun events (since it fits right in with the theme of our Refit U.S.S. Atlantis), the Cochran Challenge. In what sounds like some typical "Texas-sized" fun, the Cochran Challenge has one simple goal. Slam as big an engine as possible in your rocket and let her rip at "Warp Speeds!" The rules are pretty simple, and can be found on the National Sport Launch events page here. We regret that we cannot attend the NSL in person this year, but we saw this fun event as one that was perfect to sponsor, and we will be sending some great prizes down for the top three places in the event, including the Refit U.S.S. Atlantis kit for the first-place winner! Take lots of pictures for us! back to top | back to main news page March 13, 2006 Back from NARCON, and I have to say, it was a pleasure seeing old friends, and putting faces with the names of new friends! I have to say, the highlights for me were having Lee Piester of Centuri Engineering sign an old (and yellowed) edition of the Rocket Times, listening to Matt Steele of the old North Coast Rocketry speak and having some great conversations with him, meeting all of the attendees and more! Of course, I also enjoyed the fact that our friends at Semroc were right next to us this year instead of across the room, and so we talked a LOT this year! You could not meet a finer rocket family than Carl, Sheryl and Bruce, the McLawhorn's! They had a smashing success at NARCON as well with the release of their new Mars Lander kit. People were (including me) literally waiting in line for this one! I had brought my own vintage original Mars Lander to NARCON, knowing that Semroc would be releasing theirs, and also managed to get a pic of the Semroc gang posing with my vintage Mars Lander. I hope to post some NARCON photos here shortly. Now, of course, I am not going to be only content with plugging another fine rocket company here, I also have to plug my own. Our booth at NARCON was again a success this year, we introduced two new detail decal sheets which will be up in our webstore soon, and we generated quite a bit of interest in our next kit release, the Interrogator. The Interrogator is in the final stages of getting ready for production, and hopefully we are down to under 8 weeks before release. The prototype display models (and kit photo beauty models) were also a hit at NARCON, and we only wish we had them in the bag already! It looks like the Interrogator models will join the ranks of the Saturn and Atlantis kits (which was introduced at NARCON last year and which sold quite well again this year) as a kit that will be very well received! back to top | back to main news page NARCON 2006 Photos Along with a van full of stuff from other quality manufacturers like Flis Kits, Estes, and more, we also displayed our ever growing product line of craftsman kits, parts accessories, tools and decal sets. This was just part of the Sirius Rocketry Display at NARCON 2006. The forthcoming Interrogator models, our ever-popular Refit USS Atlantis, and our 1:64 Scale Saturn were all on display along with David's original classic Estes Mars Lander which....   ...we absolutely had to hand to Sheryl, Carl and Bruce of Semroc for a great photo-op in honor of their new Mars Lander Kit!   One of our new friends, John Dyer of Red River Rocketry. Great kits!   To end a sort of ongoing joke on the Rocketry Forum where I kidnapped, er, kept the JonRocket sign for safekeeping when John left NARCON last year (forgetting his sign), John (not Jon) Arthur (right) of JonRocket.com finally gets his sign back alive for an undisclosed sum of unmarked bills.   Team Outlander's Project was admired by NARCON attendees. That one could use our Mars Lander/Outlander Decal set, just like the little one below has!   Centuri Engineering Company founder and NARCON special guest Lee Piester looks over some Centuri memorabilia. Armed guards stood around the perimeter of the table... :-) Lots of CLASSIC stuff!   And then there is the micro classic stuff from the fine folks at.... Micro Classics!   Ric Gaff and Mark Bundick look over the Sirius Rocketry kit line at the Sirius booth.   "Mission to Mars" was the NARCON 2006 theme, and this is how we are going to get there! :-) One more long shot of the Sirius Rocketry booth. Sirius, Top Flight Recovery, Flis Kits, Estes, Bob Smith and so much more to choose from, oh my! Thanks to the NARCON attendees for helping us lighten the load so we did not have to pack it all up again for the trip home!   back to top | back to main news page March 9, 2006 Look forward to some forthcoming news on a fun contest we are sponsoring at NSL 2006! SEE YOU AT NARCON 2006! Stop by our booth this weekend! Join us again this year at NARCON 2006, the National Association of Rocketry's annual CONvention at the University of Wisconsin - Parkside, sponsored again by our friends at WOOSH. Want some Centuri Memories? Leroy Piester, founder of Centuri engineering will be there! If you missed Vern and Gleda Estes last year, this is your chance this year to meet another rocketry legend! There is a ton of fun packed into the weekend, we will be there once again with our booth, some new products, and lots of rocketry goodies in the vendors area. Stop by and say hello! back to top | back to main news page December 30, 2005 A quick HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! 2005 was great for us, and we are working really hard on some new stuff for 2006. We also did not anticipate running out of Saturns, but we did, and spent a good chunk of a month or two getting a new batch ready again. We also have some new kits in store that are just awaiting instructions, which have been delayed because of the Saturn re-stock. We hope to have a few new releases in a month or two. We will be doing end of year inventory for a couple of days in January, but order anything you want right now, and we will ship it a day or two before the postage rates go up on January 8th. back to top | back to main news page December 20, 2005 The Sirius Rocketry Saturn kit is now back in stock! Reservations for the the first of the batch have been filled and the Saturn is now back in our online store. This batch did wind up costing us more to make, and the retail price will be increasing soon. Time is running out to get the Saturn at the current price. Thanks to all those who reserved their kits at the old price! back to top | back to main news page October 12, 2005 This year, we have had a MAJOR run on the Saturn kits. More than we expected! They are quite expensive and time-consuming to produce, so if you did not get your foot in the door this last go-round, you are out of luck for a few months as we try to triple the production of these kits. The only problem is that some of the costs are going up on the raw materials that we need, and we are really not trying to pass that along to you in the form of increased retail right now, but we may have to. Unless you get a reservation in now at the current price. Just contact us by email, and we will work it out from there. Price increases across the board will be happening soon, and that is a given, but we are holding out as long as we can at the current prices. So, please reserve your kit if you wish at this time. It looks like otherwise that because of the increasing costs of all petro-products and products derived from them that the retail on the Saturn kit will have to be 369.95 for this next batch. Lock in your price now! The price will probably increase on our site at the end of November. There is also an increasing demand that the non-flying plastic/IMPS-type modelers have had for this kit, which is making our supply even shorter. These are the folks that will pay a grand for a 48" long Space 1999 Eagle, and just want a great display. So we are in short supply, and are busting as much as we can to get them out there as fast as we can. Right now, if you want one, ask for them now! We may also offer a really short and temporary sale on some of our other kits, just because we want you to have some fun this winter building! back to top | back to main news page August 6, 2005 Atlantis Spied at NARAM 47. Chan Stevens' build of the Refit USS Atlantis was spotted sport flying at NARAM 47. We so wanted to make NARAM this year, but could not, but it was nice seeing that the Refit was able to make it! Thanks to Art Upton and BoosterVision for selling our Atlantis kits at NARAM!    NARAM Photos courtesy of Chris Taylor and NARAM Live site. Used by permission. back to top | back to main news page July 20, 2005 Happy anniversary of the first moon landing! Thanks to all that are making our latest kit a success! We did have a minor problem with Refit U.S.S. Atlantis decals in LESS than 20 kits due to a vendor mistake, problem was, before a certain date we did not know which ones! We have replaced all decals that we thought could possibly be bad, automatically mailing new sheets to all who purchased our kit over the web whether we thought they had bad decals or not, we just did not want to have anyone unhappy because of a printing mistake we could not control. Thanks for your understanding! We have already seen instances of our Atlantis decals showing up in some other projects because the ones we thought we should replace are good, and the bonus set has been used on other projects.... While we automatically mailed replacement sheets to everyone whether we thought they needed them or not, our list is now down to less than 10 kits purchased at NARCON 2005 that we have no details on. So if you purchased a Refit U.S.S. Atlantis at NARCON 2005, and would like a new set of decal sheets, let us know. We will hold this offer open until we get the last ten or so that may need a new set of decals. In other news.... We had a wierd experience at about 32,000 feet a couple weeks ago on a plane flying out to our summer vacation. Snapped a picture out the window of something not seen before. I have been studying the picture, and hope to post some details soon. Needless to say, I am doing my best to make what I saw into a kit..... We do have some more kit releases around the corner, it just takes so darned long to write those manuals! :-) We just finished test flying a couple of new ones this past weekend.... back to top | back to main news page Ye Olde Rocket Forum is a new place to go and talk to your heart's content about old rockets. With a focus on the classic OOP kits, cloning oldies but goodies and more, this is the place for pure, fun, rocket nostalgia! We even stop by in the Vendors section. Scott Hansen and Co. have a great new forum for lovers of the classic kits! Check out the Forum! back to top | back to main news page March 16, 2005 It's HERE!!!! Had a wonderful time at NARCON 2005! We debuted the Refit U.S.S. Atlantis kit to RAVE reviews, and sold more at NARCON than we expected! Now, our latest Sirius Rocketry Elite line kit is available in our online store! Order your refit today! For details on the Refit U.S.S. Atlantis, click here. December 29, 2004 As the New Year comes upon us, we wish to wish you the best, and the greatest year yet! 2004 has been good to us, with the re-launch of our online store, the re-release of the Saturn 5 kit, lots of fun at NARCON, and several well-recieved decal specials! This coming year we will have a presence at NARCON as a sponsor, and as a company who is trying to make the event even better than last year. Our resolution for 2005 is to come out with several new kits, and market even more that you will enjoy! Have a wonderful 2005, and remember us at Sirius as we grow even more in 2005! back to top | back to main news page Older news items from the earlier days of Sirius Rocketry have disappeared into the sunset.... ------------------------------------------ Sirius: pronounced as "serious." The dog star. Other names: Canicula (--No, Canicula Rocketry did not work in 1998, besides it had a wierd and pretty warped Roman feel to it if you know what I mean!) and Aschere (which sounded like the forces ripping off fins at Mach speed...) Brightest star in the sky after the Sun. Over 20 times brighter than the sun, and twice as massive. Not the closest star to us, but only a short 8.6 light years away. What is the closest star? It is Proxima Centauri, the nearest member of the Alpha Centauri triple star system. Light takes only 4.22 years to reach us from Proxima Centauri. In the constellation Canis Major. But that sounded too much like an old model rocket company! (old-timers know who I am talking about) Back to being "serious"... The star Sirius-- Absolute Magnitiude 1.4. Translated as "scorching" (Something one would not really want to do with a model or high-power rocket!) A name for Satellite Radio (used to work in radio but finally got out myself!) Actually Sirius just played right in with our slogan, and happened to be a celestial object....thus the solar/star theme in our logo, taken from the viewpoint of the setting sun from a satellite planet of Sirius. Gotta be serious about rocketry (like I have been for 27 years) to be here in the first place, after all we are: Sirius Rocketry "For the Serious Rocketeer" See how that works? :-) (woof) How many channels do we have? None. No music here. Unless you love the sound of BP and AP roaring in the morning! ______________________ back to top | back to main news page Cottage kit makers: Contact us to find out how we can help market your quality kits to a wider audience. 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