Launch Canada 2025 - University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team

LC 2025 - U.P.

‘UP’ is the USST’s second high-powered rocket, building on the experience gained from our 2024 project, ‘Zenith’. Designed for the Basic Category of the 2025 Launch Canada Challenge.

The rocket features a COTS-integrated airframe with a removable fin assembly, a fully redundant recovery system with a SRAD drogue parachute, and a dual COTS/SRAD avionics suite designed to validate a custom flight computer for future missions.

Specs

Diameter: 5″
Length: 8.5 ft
Total Mass: ~22.8 kg (~50.3 lbs)

Apogee: ~12,900 ft
Max Velocity: ~Mach 1.2
Motor Classification: M

Details

Aerostructure

Nosecone & Body: COTS 5″ fiberglass Von Kármán nosecone and body tubes. The nosecone includes ~2.1 kg of internal ballast (steel BBs in epoxy) to ensure stability.
Fins: Four removable, trapezoidal fins machined from 6061 aluminum, designed for supersonic flight and secured with bolts to internal centering rings.
Bulkheads: All structural bulkheads are CNC-machined from 6061-T6 aluminum.
Structure: A three-section airframe (Upper, Middle, Lower) allows for dual-deployment separation. A removable fin cage and boat tail skeleton assembly house the motor.

Avionics

Recovery Altimeters: Two independent COTS altimeters manage recovery events: a Missile Works RRC3 (primary) and a Featherweight Altimeters Blue Raven (secondary).
Telemetry & Tracking: A hybrid system provides real-time data via a SRAD telemetry board (Teensy 4.1 with RFM95W radio) and a COTS Featherweight GPS tracker, transmitting on separate 915 MHz channels. A backup RF beacon is also included.
Avionics Bay: A modular, accessible design featuring a 3D-printed PAHT-CF internal structure housed within a 12″ fiberglass coupler, allowing for easy access to all components.

Recovery

System: Dual-deployment, dual-separation system using black powder ejection charges.
Drogue Parachute: SRAD 30″ zero-porosity nylon ripstop parachute, deployed at apogee.
Main Parachute: COTS 72″ Iris Ultra Standard parachute from Fruity Chutes, deployed at 1,500 ft AGL.
Redundancy: Two completely independent COTS flight computers, each with its own 9V power source, arming switch, and e-matches for both deployment events.
Harness: 1/2″ Kevlar shock cord (6000 lb rated) with z-folds to dampen snatch forces.

Propulsion

Motor: COTS Cesaroni M3400 White Thunder solid rocket motor.
Casing: Cesaroni Pro98-4G motor casing.
Mounting: The motor is retained by a 6061 aluminum boat tail skeleton that threads into a custom thrust plate, which also serves as the mounting point for the fin assembly.

Launch Results

The team is pleased with our LC 2025 results, especially considering this was only our second entry into the challenge and our first time winning one of the competition’s Grand Prizes. However, our rocket exceeded our predicted apogee by nearly 4,000 feet, creating a significant discrepancy between expected and actual performance. This large margin of error has prompted the team to consider using multiple rocket trajectory simulation software programs to better verify our future predictions.