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The design and construction of the Aspire 2 rocket
vehicle was the principal reason behind the formation of AspireSpace
all those years ago and remains our primary technical objective for
the next few years. Aspire 2 will be a reusable sounding rocket
capable of launching a 10kg payload to an altitude of just over 100km (i.e.
into space). This vehicle will be powered by a LOX/HDPE hybrid
engine and will make use of modern lightweight composite
materials, including a unique composite LOX tank, the development of
which started at Delft University in Holland.
Although much design work has already been
undertaken, this has mostly been at a conceptual level, e.g.
obtaining an initial mass estimate and performing trajectory
simulations. Much detailed design and development of the components
and systems for Aspire 2 remain to be done providing many challenges
for all of our members.
The latest version of Aspire 2 is a two-stage
vehicle, with ADV3 as the top stage, and a
large multi-chamber hybrid as the lower stage.
Our biggest logistical challenge is finding
somewhere inexpensive to launch Aspire 2. |