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"Propulsion" refers to the subteam that provides the systems necessary to accelerate the vehicle. It encompasses both solid and liquid rocket propellant design and operation.
MIT Rocket Team operates both commercial and custom propulsion systems. The development of our in-house propulsion started in the fall of 2015 with an extensive review of local, federal, and University regulations on making rocket motors. Over the summer of 2016 several students conducted research on Project Firefly. Project Firefly graciously allowed us to develop our fuel in tandem with their research. We gained access to their test facilities in exchange for access to our mixing facilities and storage depots. This first propellant formulation was called Xaphan Blue.
In Starting in the fall of 2017 as part of Project Hermes, the propulsion team began developed a new series of improvements to the custom solid formulation, now dubbed "Ocean Water." This propellant is higher performing, cheaper, and easier to producepropellant formulations including Ocean Water, Cherry Limeade, and Kickstart. These propellants have each been built off of the knowledge the team gained from their precursors and have been our steps towards a high performance, low cost, pourable solid propellant for use in 4-6" diameter motors in the 10-100 kilonewton-second range.
Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS)
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The team also to pursues custom propulsion systems. These are either Liquid or Solid propellant based. For these motors, we build all components in house including motor hardware and propellant. These motors can only be flown at Tripoli or independent launch events.
Combustion Chronicles
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