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 of 3000 m and 9000 m.
The FRoDO rockets use solid propellant rocket motors and are designed to carry several payloads, such as CanSats.
The latest rocket, FRoDO-M was launched at the 2024 edition of the European Rocketry Challenge to an apogee of 2993.7 m. The team is proud to have secured third place in the overall ranking of the competition. FRoDO-M uses a bi-directional cold-gas thruster system to precisely control the apogee height as close to the 3000 m as possible. A total of 2 kg payloads in form of 4 CanSats were transported in the rocket.
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 end of 2022 and has been used as a test platform for subsystems and manufacturing methods.