Rattlesnake was our first vehicle and the one with which our association was founded. The main objective was to develop a low-cost vehicle, to familiarize ourselves with the simulation and design of launchers and thus make ourselves a name within the university community.

The rocket was a single-stage vehicle that separated into two parts at apogee for parachute deployment. Rattlesnake was launched three times. On its first launch, we obtained L1 certification. By this time, the association was already formed, and the design and manufacturing basis was established for the next vehicles.

Astrea-C (originally Astrea) was the second vehicle we developed. After the success of Rattlesnake and the good reception we had within the University, the team grew and with it the objectives to achieve. 

Astrea was originally a single-stage vehicle with two avionics bays and space to carry payloads. It was a great challenge in terms of mechanical design with the emergence of composite materials and electronics with the design of printed circuit boards.

During the lockdown, the team continued working on the project, and after several changes and a slight redesign Astrea-C appeared, a vehicle with similar characteristics to Astrea but with commercial elements due to the impossibility to manufacture them during the pandemic.

Astrea-C is in the verification and validation campaign of the avionics and is ready to be launched soon.

Taranis was our project for EuRoC’22. It was a single stage, solid fuel, COTS-motor rocket with a target apogee of 9km which we launched in Portugal in October of 2022.

With approximately three meters in length, the entirety of the fuselage was built in fiberglass and manufactured in-house by our own team. It featured a dual deployment recovery system and carried a total of three custom payloads, one of them deployable. These payloads, with CanSat form factor, allowed us to perform on-board experiments such as obtaining 

flight data with several IMUs for post-processing purposes.

The use of an umbilical cable system allowed us to communicate between the Ground Control Station and the on-board avionics, also of in-house design, during the launch preparation phase.

An unfortunate failure of the motor during the early flight stages prevented us from reaching the targeted apogee and ended our mission early, but we used the experience to learn and improve our future projects.

Lynx, is currently being developed with the objective to launch at EuRoC’23. It will be a 3km-apogee, single stage, solid fuel, COTS-motor rocket. We are currently in the last steps of the design phase and will soon start the manufacturing process.

Its fuselage will be composed of sections of fiberglass and carbon fiber to provide a solid aerostructure while also maintaining radiofrequency transparency for the electronics.

We are also introducing new technologies and methods during the design and manufacturing stages such as the use of generative design and selective laser melting for the motor retainer.

Lince also includes three different in-house developed payloads which will serve as testing grounds for new technologies to be used in future projects: a prototype of an aerobrake system and a highly dynamic GNSS SDR receiver based on hardware acceleration through FPGAs.

Copyright © STARUC3M