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…
Read more
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.…
Read more
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…
Read more
“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” With this blog post we want to review our launch last Wednesday. Several very impressive engineering feats were performed before final take-off. We would like to give some more in-depth information about the problems encountered and the creativity that let us solve them. “You can’t have a perfect…
Read more
Last night, we launched our Stratos III rocket attempting to break the European altitude record. The procedures took all night and finally around 3:30 in the morning the rocket lifted off successfully. Then, 20 seconds into the flight the rocket disintegrated. The pieces landed in the ocean within the safety zone. Together with INTA (Instituto…
Read more
Unfortunately, we have cancelled the launch window for today. Although the weather was suitable for launch in the early afternoon, the weather balloon data obtained in the evening showed winds at lower altitudes are much stronger than predicted. This led to margins on wind becoming smaller than expected, making a launch today not possible. As…
Read more
In this second part of the explanation of the Nimbus engine, we will focus on the nozzle. The nozzle is the part of the engine where the flaming and expanding gasses flow out, accelerating our rocket to up to three times the speed of sound. It is located all the way at the bottom of…
Read more
Pressure is rising with only 24 hours to go before the first launch attempt. Today we checked out all our electronic systems for interference by means of an electromagnetic compatibility test. This in simple terms is just turning all your transmitting and receiving systems on and verifying if they all still work. Other than checking…
Read more
Today, exactly 49 years after the historic moon landing of Apollo 11, we successfully performed our first full dress rehearsal in Spain together with INTA. Early in the morning, we placed the rocket on the cart and transported it to the pad. Our photographer Jurriaan Brobbel made an amazing group picture of us, the INTA…
Read more
In the early morning the brave rail-rangers gathered at the vehicle assembly building to perform another practice run with the rocket carrying rail. This time, we managed to load the rocket in the launch tower, for the first time since we arrived in Spain. After loading Stratos III in the tower, the tower with rocket…
Read more
