Tuesday was another successful day for the Stratos Team. The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering organized an inflight call with André Kuipers from the International Space Station. The event was also attended by Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. The national press covered the story and Frank Engelen, the team leader of Project Stratos was interviewed by ‘Vandaag de Dag’ in front of the new test bench of the hybrid propulsion team. The short interview can be seen here (06:23 t/m 07:52).

Before Mark Rutte entered Lecture Room A to talk to André Kuipers and students, we had an opportunity to show him the hybrid test bench. He was also so kind to take a picture with us.  Our work had left an impression as Mark Rutte referred to the test bench while talking to students in the Lecture Room.

A reception was given after the inflight call where we had the opportunity to present the test bench to representatives of the dutch space industry.

Traditionally every mission to space has a mission patch: a unique badge that is representative of the mission. Such a badge can function as a logo of the mission and is usually worn on team clothing.
Stratos II can of course not stay behind in that respect. Therefore we designed a patch, which every team member can proudly wear on their shoulder:

Today an article about the upcoming Stratos launch anniversary celebration came out in the Delta.

The article features information about the rocket itself, as well as the lecture that will be given tonight by Stratos II project leader Frank Engelen, as part of the celebration.

You can read the article here.

And of course you can also come to the lecture tonight at 20:00 in lecture room A of the Electronics Engineering (EWI) faculty, at Mekelweg 4 in Delft. Everyone is welcome!

Today we added a column by Olga Motsyk titled DARE TO DREAM to the site. This column was previously published in the magazine Leonardo Times, a well respected magazine published by students of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the TU Delft.

In the column Olga greatly describes the long and hard road that lead to the first Stratos rocket, the ecstatic feeling of work finally coming together, the excitement of achievement, and the desire for more with the successor Stratos II. To read more continue to the article.

The column has been added to the media coverage section on the media page. On this page we will keep track of the coverage of project Stratos in the media.

Today DARE held a kick off event for Stratos II for the general public in the hall of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. During this event the Stratos II team gave presentations to interested people about the project and gave opportunity for people to join the project. A lot of interested people showed up, making this kick off a great success.

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Dawn flight engine ready to go

On Thursday the 3th of May 2012, the hybrid propulsion team of the Stratos II project (named Dawn) successfully tested their flight engine. This hybrid rocket engine has been developed based on the research they have done during the whole span of the project. Now finally they are ready to go for the first attempt in the history of DARE to launch a hybrid rocket engine. The team has kept to their original design of an engine with a sorbitol fuel grain and a nitrous oxide oxidizer. To store the oxidizer the tank concept developed during the Spacecraft Engineering Minor [...]