The Rapid Team (Rocketry and Propulsion in Darmstadt) has set the goal of developing, building, and operating its sounding rockets.
The focus is on deepening the theoretical knowledge taught in lectures at TU Darmstadt and expanding it to include a practical component. The complex overall system “rocket” is ideally suited to imparting content to our members and indispensable cooperation in an interdisciplinary team.
Current Rocket Development:
The Fantastic Rocket of Darmstadt Origin, FRoDO, is our newest rocket generation. Our goal with the FRoDO rockets is to participate in international student rocketry competitions such as the European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC). At EuRoC, which is promoted and organized by the Portuguese Space Agency, the competing student teams launch their rockets to heights between 3000 m and 9000 m.
The FRoDO rockets use solid propellant rocket motors and are designed to carry several payloads, such as CanSats.
The currently developed FRoDO-M rocket will be launched to 3000 m at the 2024 European Rocketry Challenge. We will use our past launch experience to improve the rocket concept. In addition to upgrading our recovery system, we focused on collecting valuable sensor data from several subsystems of the rocket, including structural and aerodynamic behavior. The rocket also uses an active altitude control system to reach its target apogee as precisely as possible.
The FRoDO-J rocket was launched to a height of 983 m in September 2023. In addition to a more sophisticated dual stage recovery system and updated avionics, this rocket was able to carry 3 CanSat payloads to the apogee. Furthermore, the materials and the manufacturing methods used were improved to withstand the increased loads during flight and landing.
The first demo rocket of this generation, FRoDO-H, made two successful flights to 400 m at the the end of 2022 and was used as a test platform.
