A group of students aims to become the first non-government, non-commercial team to launch a reusable rocket to space. Their Aurora rocket, set to launch from California this month, is designed to reach a top speed of Mach 5.2 and break through Earth’s atmosphere.
The Karman Space Programme (KSP) was founded by students at Imperial College London just two years ago, with the sole aim of breaking through the Kármán line, the 100 kilometre altitude that is widely recognised as the edge of space.
To achieve this, they designed and built a 540-kilogram rocket that stands 12 metres tall and 50 centimetres in diameter – although their small working space on campus means that it will be assembled for the very first time at the launch site.
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The craft consists of two separate stages, each with its own engine fuelled by liquid oxygen and ethanol. Aurora’s first stage engine has an estimated 40,000 Newtons of thrust, and the group says it is the most powerful non-governmental, non-commercial rocket engine ever built.
Each stage will fire for just over 20 seconds, and at its peak speed the rocket will be travelling at 5522 kilometres an hour – or roughly 1500 metres per second. At 100 seconds after launch, it will reach its highest point and then begin falling back to Earth for a soft landing by parachute.
To ensure the rocket passes the Kármán line, the team are aiming for a top altitude of 105 kilometres. If successful, they will be the second student-led team to reach space – and the first to do so with a reusable rocket.
KSP’s chairman says that the first student space shot – by a in 2019 – was impressive, but that the rocket was single-use and used solid motors. The Californian claim on reaching space is also tenuous, as the margin of error in measuring its altitude means their rocket may just have fallen short of 100 kilometres.
Shapol says that the more advanced KSP mission will use multi-stage liquid engines like commercial launchers, recover all sections of the rocket, and could in theory be turned-around for a second launch within 24 hours.
The team has also calculated that if the engines fire for too long, the rocket could reach as high as 140 kilometres. However, safety measures have been put in place to prevent this because it would make recovery of the landed components more difficult.
Aurora is already en route to the launch site in the Mojave desert in California, and the team will arrive on 19 September to make preparations ahead of the launch on 24 September.
Shapol says that launching in California has made the logistics more difficult and more expensive. The team would have loved to fire the rocket in the UK, he says, but there are no facilities for such a launch.
“There would be no better scenario than having it launched in the UK. Launching outside the UK is a huge pain, but there isn’t a place right now to launch up to these altitudes in the UK. It’s a real shame,” he says.
Around 100 students from a range of courses have helped on the project, using AI to run simulations and metal 3D-printing to fabricate some parts. Some 25 of those have since graduated, but the rest are still actively working on the mission. While Imperial has allowed the rocket to be built on its campus, it isn’t funding the project, so students have had to source their own corporate sponsors. The total cost was £150,000, says Shapol.
“There are about 75 really hardcore fans that live, breathe, dream rockets. It’s incredibly inspiring to see such a supportive team that have enabled this,” says Shapol. “It really is the team that’s powering this more than propellants.”
Shapol says it is hard to predict what will happen at launch, but that preparations have included and on high-altitude weather balloons.
The team’s previous rockets include Vega, powered by the same engine as Aurora’s second stage and designed to test avionics and propulsion, reaching an altitude of 50 kilometres, while the 2-metre-long Nebula reached speeds just over Mach 1 and was intended to test performance at supersonic speeds.
“We’ve tried to fail as much as possible before so that we don’t fail on the big one,” says Shapol. “For the past two weeks, I’ve been getting very little sleep because all I’m thinking about is the chance of success. Honestly, I can’t say it’s 100 per cent. I can’t even say it’s 50 per cent, because it’s never been done before. As the saying goes, you plan and god laughs.”
