Air-Launched Low-SWaP Space-Capable Sounding Rocket
IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings
Mar 2019
With the goal of becoming the first civilian university to reach space, The Stanford Student Space Initiative's Spaceshot Team (SSI Spaceshot) has designed a custom rocket-balloon (rockoon) system to achieve an apogee height of greater than 100 km (i.e. to cross the Kármán Line, a widely-accepted definition of the boundary of space), while demonstrating a cheap, low Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP), suborbital launch technology. Suborbital launch represents a high-potential space for growth in aerospace as it provides a high-value market for aerospace research and a low-cost, lower-risk opportunity for agents with less capital to access space. Technologies such as this open-source rocket-balloon system provide an incredible opportunity to dem