A group of engineering students procured admission into the Manipal Institute of Technology and they discovered a few projects that were up for grabs when they joined.

The students call themselves ‘ThrustMIT’ and the recruitment for the project is open for first-year students. Advisor Srinivas G, a faculty member from the Aeronautical Engineering department, is overlooking the project.

Amogh Govil is the head of the student team and said “sounding rockets are basically research oriented rockets, which carry a scientific payload 50-1500 kilometres above the surface of the earth. Altitude is generally between that of aeroplanes and satellites. Their small size allows them to be launched from temporary launch sites.”

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He further added, “ThrustMIT is working on a sounding rocket which will be around 8 feet tall, attain an apogee of around 10,000 feet and carry a payload of at least 8.8 lbs (4 kgs). We will use a solid propellant for propulsion. We will be employing a flight computer on board our rocket to monitor the flight path.”

Another team member Surya added that the competition that is held in the U.S. Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) every year have a few constraints that need to be followed. Rockets with a payload of 8 pounds and can reach up to 30,000 feet above ground level are allowed to participate. Rockets tend to be multistage rockets and are typically 4 to 12 inches in diameter. It can use different forms of propulsion systems i.e. liquid, solid and hybrids.

“The goal right now is to be successful in the 2018 competition. Though initially, we wanted to participate in the upcoming competition this summer, we finally decided against it as we wanted to be there fully prepared and have already started working in this direction,” said Surya.