3... 2... 1... Liftoff!

On Thursday, 20 June, 2019, HEIDI took off at the Spaceport America Cup in the desert of New Mexico! Read below what happened and which award we won this time!

SPAC 2019 | Poster Session (19 June)

On Tuesday we had the opportunity to display our sounding rocket HEIDI to all the other competing teams as well as the judges. Here we showcased all our highly engineered subsystems and manufacturing processes that contributed to the final design of Heidi. The light-weight carbon-fibre structure which we developed together with RUAG, the machined airbrakes and motor developed at Maxon Motor, the wind-tunnel testing at Sauber Aerodynamics, and the simulations performed on systems provided by Klein were amongst the highlights. Additionally the payloads which were developed at ETH, HSLU, and ZHAW were also on display and were very well received by the judges and participants alike.  

Additionally we had our flight safety review where we had to show how it is built. The recovery system was especially analyzed in order to ensure a safe recovery. In parallel to this the team was able to talk to all the other engineers to find out about their rocket.

In the afternoon we then had the opportunity to jump in for a team and present our impressive avionics, especially the powerful PCB controlling not only the air brakes but also ensuring a connection down to or ground station receiving all the necessary flight data, especially the GPS signal in order to recover the rocket efficiently.

SPAC 2019 | Final Inspection (20 June)

The next day we got up at 3:45 in order to go to drive into the New Mexican desert at Spaceport America. After setting up the assembly as well as the “chill” area we started to assemble at around 7:30. Safety of each member was ensured by providing 4 gallons of water for each of the 21 engineers and a lot of electrolytes.

The payload module then successfully underwent a final pre-flight inspection to check for mass, independent function, and form factor.   
After doing some fine tuning and debugging to the avionics, we were able to fully assemble Heidi in the desert by 13:00. It was then inspected by an ESRA judge who gave us the approval to go ahead with the final safety check and obtain a flight card. At this point, taking the advice of the judges into account, the ground recovery team together with the project management decided that it was beneficial to post the launch until early in the morning the next day. This decision was made to circumvent the extreme heat and steadily increasing wind speeds that would have lead to non-optimal launch conditions and made it difficult for the recovery team to safely retrieve Heidi from the desert.  

Most of the team then made their way back to the hotel while 6 members stayed behind in the desert to ensure the safety of Heidi overnight.

ETH Zürich | Good luck! (21 June)

ETH Zürich did not forget its rocket science students and published today, on the day of launch, a very nice article with videos about the projects of ARIS and the efforts the students invested to have the opportunity launching HEIDI at the Spaceport America Cup 2019.

SPAC 2019 | 3... 2... 1... Liftoff! (21 June)

The team then got together at 03:45 back in the desert and made the final preparations for the launch. We were amongst the first in line to get a flight card and were now ready to launch Heidi. After getting together with Doug Gerrard from Rocketry Photography who provides us with the launch rail, we proceeded to take Heidi to the launch pad. After some unexpected delays due to being in the queue for launch, Heidi was successfully launched at 10:10 local time (18:10 MET) and completed a nominal flight 3 minutes 10 seconds later. Both the drogue chute and the main parachute deployed as expected leading to a soft landing. The recovery team then headed out into the desert and found Heidi. On visual inspection, only minor damages to easily expendable parts was observed.

According to sensors on board, we were able to establish that the apogee was 9298ft (or 2834m). The achieved apogee was approximately 7% lower than the target apogee of 10’000ft. The team is in the process of evaluating the reason behind this.

With this flight, Heidi became the first student researched rocket developed at ARIS to complete a nominal flight.

SPAC 2019 | Awarded! (22 June)

We happily announce that HEIDI made it on the second place of the Spaceport America Cup in the 10k ft COTS category!! Besides an award for the second place, the team received a honourable mention for safety!

We are most thankful for all your great support and mentoring throughout the project. Thank you for flying from one success to the other with us! A special `Thank You´ to our main sponsors and partner RUAG Space, Maxon Motor AG, Sauber Aerodynamik AG, ETH Zürich, Hochschule Luzern, ZHAW School of Management and Law!

Join the project of 2019 - 2020!

We are already looking for team members for the next Spaceport America Cup, 2020. Possible roles in the teams:

Management Teams

• Sponsoring and Relations Manager in the Sponsoring Team
• Design & Content Manager in the Marketing Team
• Human Resources Manager in the HR Team
• Logistics Manager in the Operations Team
• Financial Manager

Rocket Team

• Project Manager
• Subsystem Team Leader
• Safety Officer
• System Engineer
• Testing Engineer

Strategic Development Team

• Project Manager
• System Engineer

Interested? Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and let's find a suitable role for you!

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ARIS would like to update you every few months on the development of our projects.

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ARIS Akademische Raumfahrt Initiative
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