Launching in May of this year will be the DAREdevil rocket, a new project aimed at developing and flight-testing technologies for future Stratos missions. The first iteration of the rocket, developed by our team of 11 students, will test three important new technologies: rocket staging, in-flight ignition and a fairing separation of the nosecone. Amidst…
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For his Master of Science (MSc) Thesis of Delft University of Technology, on of our senior members Martin Olde conducted research on KNO3-sugar based propellants. These propellants, also known as rocket candy, form a group of simple, cheap and safe solid propellants that are used extensively in student and amateur rocketry communities. One of the…
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After the flight of the Stratos III sounding rocket, a team was instated to investigate the cause of the anomaly that occurred. After a thorough investigation, the team concluded that the rocket suffered from a phenomenon called inertial roll coupling. This coupling is inherent to all flying vehicles with a slender profile, such as sounding…
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When flying a rocket, it is very important to know the velocity of the vehicle throughout the flight phase. Unlike measuring speed on a bike or a car, a rocket moves very quickly through the atmosphere, making a proper speed estimation a challenge. Despite, our structures department managed to develop a supersonic pitot tube, which…
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Before a parachute can fly on one of our flagship missions it needs to be thoroughly tested. This blog dives into the testing that is done by the Parachute Research Group (PRG) and will give an explanation of why tests are being done. It is important that the tests represent the envelope in which the…
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The DARE parachute research group (PRG) was founded in February 2018 when the DARE and Stratos Recovery teams merged. The merger allowed for the resources to be better used and as the goals of the teams were close together the merger was smooth. Before the merger, the DARE recovery team was mainly working on Aether…
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On the October DARE test day, the solid propulsion team had the first successful tests of the DXS (DARE eXperimental Solid) Icarus engine development. The DXS Icarus engine was designed for implementation in Project Aether, one of DARE’s flagship projects. Aether is one of our research vehicles, designed to reach supersonic speeds whilst only flying…
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A project like Stratos faces many challenges. Some of them are technical, but a lot of the challenges we face are different. As most of the team members are technical students, we are usually able to solve most technical problems. We are far less educated in management and other non-technical tasks. Considering the fact that…
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Today marks the third anniversary of the successful launch of our Stratos II+ rocket. On October 16th 2015 Stratos II+ flew to an altitude on 21.5 km, thereby breaking the European altitude record for student rockets. This achievement was the culmination of many new technical innovations and operational successes which are still with us today.…
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In this blog we would like to focus on the people within our society, getting their hands dirty on actual rocket science. Today we continue the story of Simon Verkleij! Find the first part of this series of blog posts here! Hi, my name is Simon Verkleij and I am the Chief Electronics of Stratos…
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