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Updating NFPA Code 1125 on Rocket Motors

Trip Barber

On February 2, 2010 the National Fire Protection Association's Committee on Pyrotechnics completed the first of two meetings to do the quadrennial review and update of NFPA Code 1125, "Code for the Manufacture of Model Rocket and High Power Rocket Motors". This NFPA Committee has 32 people who include the pyrotechnics and rocketry industries and user organizations, safety experts and public safety officials. It has jurisdiction over all the rocketry codes and several of the pyrotechnics codes. The rocketry members who were in attendance at this meeting were Mary Roberts, Bill Stine, Gary Rosenfield, and Anthony Cesaroni from the industry and Patrick Miller, Trip Barber, Ted Cochran, and Darren Wright from the user organizations.

This meeting's purpose was to review public proposals for changes to NFPA 1125 and to develop Committee proposals for changes. There were 14 public proposals and the rocketry members of the Committee generated 15 proposals at this meeting. All proposals had to be decided upon by the full Committee at the meeting; then these decisions have to be confirmed by mail ballot of the Committee afterward. They are next posted for public comment in the late spring, with comments due by September 3. The Committee will meet again, probably on September 30 in Phoenix, to review any public comments and update then re-vote the revisions. After this, the full NFPA has to review the changes before the revised code takes effect in the summer of 2011. So changes made at this week's meeting are the first step of a long process and are not yet final decisions, nor do they take effect approved by the full NFPA in summer 2011. The user codes (1122 and 1127) will be going through this same process at this time next year.

There were six major areas where this meeting resulted in proposed changes to NFPA 1125. The unofficial full text of the proposals and their disposition:

  1. The propellant mass limit for "model rocket" motor was raised to 125 grams while maintaining the 160 N-sec total impulse limit and 80 N average thrust limit; and model rocket motors were explicitly characterized as being "solid propellant" only. Per Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations, motors with more than 62.5 grams of propellant and reloadable motors of all types may not be sold to persons age 17 or younger.
  2. Language was added to make it clear that all motors which do not meet every element of the definition of "model rocket motor" are therefore as a result "high power rocket motors", clearing up some ambiguous situations such as small hybrid motors.
  3. The requirements for labeling and for the instructions for high power motors, particularly for those high power motors that intentionally generate enhanced spark effects, were significantly strengthened. There were almost no such requirements in the code previously, although some manufacturers did some of this labeling on their own. This met the common concern of the rocketry representatives of ensuring that "sparky" motors not become available, deliberately or inadvertently, to non-HPR-certified consumers or flown on non-HPR ranges. All sparky motors are unambiguously HPR motors.
  4. Motors that are G power class and below but are "high power" because they are hybrids, sparky, or have an average thrust over 80N must have a prefix of "HP" added before their motor type designation
  5. The allowable maximum casing temperature for high power motors was raised from 200C to 220C.
  6. Testing procedures were added for certification testing of motors with interchangeable or user-adjustable delay systems.

The rocketry group worked very cooperatively at the meeting to develop the best way to address the areas of concern brought into the meeting by various stakeholders. All the actions that the group agreed on were unanimous, and the rocketry group's recommendations were unanimously approved by the full Committee in this first step of a long process leading to a new edition of NFPA 1125 in the summer of 2011. Appropriate adjustments will be made to Safety Codes and motor certification procedures to reflect what actually ends up in the new NFPA 1125 when it is officially approved.

Trip Barber
NAR 4322
NAR President

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