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.