Projects / Duke AERO

Duke AERO Rocketry

Duke's collegiate rocketry team designs, builds and launches a high-powered rocket almost entirely in-house each year for the International Rocketry Engineering Competition (IREC).

Role: Solid Propulsion & Structures
Period: 2025 – present
Category: IREC 30k SRAD solid
Result: 3rd place, 29,400 ft apogee

Duke AERO team members in a field with the static fire test stand

2025 – 2026 season

Devil's Advocate

Every year, students design, manufacture and test a rocket with SRAD (student-researched and designed) avionics, roll-stabilizing canards, a payload with computer vision and a guided recovery system.

In the 2025–2026 season Duke AERO competed in the 30k SRAD solid motor category. I worked with the solid propulsion and guided recovery subteams to build Devil's Advocate, an 11-foot, 125 lb rocket. It launched nominally, reached an apogee of 29,400 ft and placed 3rd in the category.

A rocket leaving the launch rail on a column of smoke under a blue sky — **Fig. 1**Launch.

Subteam

Solid propulsion

The solid propulsion team develops a 6-inch O-class solid rocket motor that produces 35,000 N·s of impulse and 5,000 N of thrust for a 30,000 ft target altitude. I worked on propellant research, analysis and testing:

Researched propellant formulation and characterization for the ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP), and proposed changes to improve pourability and processing during mixing.
Helped mix and cast the propellant grains and integrate them into the motor case.
Helped build the static hotfire test stand, including modeling and machining the load cell adapter.
Wired and programmed the Mini DAQ, an Arduino-based data acquisition device that measures motor force and chamber pressure during the hotfire.

Mixing propellant in a large stainless bowl — **Fig. 2**Mixing APCP propellant.

An aluminum part being turned on a manual lathe — **Fig. 3**Machining on the lathe.

A vertical static fire test stand standing in an open field — **Fig. 4**Static hotfire test stand.

A bright purple and white exhaust plume during a static motor firing — **Fig. 5**Static hotfire.

VideoSolid propulsion.

Subteam

Guided recovery

The guided recovery team builds the drogue and main parachutes, the recovery spur reel assembly and the separation mechanism that bring the rocket safely back to Earth.

I researched and optimized the spur reel mechanism, analyzing the CAD assembly to improve deployment and separation. I also learned to sew parachutes and studied how previous teams threaded their custom drogue parachute.

An orange and white parachute fully inflated near the ground — **Fig. 6**Parachute deployment.

The recovered rocket body, labeled DEVIL'S, lying in grass with its orange parachute — **Fig. 7**Devil's Advocate after landing.

CAD model of a recovery assembly with eye bolts and support legs — **Fig. 8**Recovery assembly CAD.

2026 – 2027 season

This year

I'm continuing on solid propulsion and joining the structures subteam. For the 2026–2027 IREC season we are competing again in the 30k SRAD category with another 6-inch O-class motor.

Solid propulsion

This semester I'm exploring new grain geometries and leading a prototype propellant characterization plan. Last year's motor used four BATES grains. This year we are testing three BATES grains and one finocyl grain as we move from a mostly booster burn profile to a sustainer burn profile.

We are also writing an experimental mini-motor test plan and revising our mixing standard operating procedure. The mini-motor plan will let us test new propellant formulations across a range of throat and grain geometries.

Structures

On structures I'm working with carbon fiber and fiberglass composites for the fins. We are developing the fin manufacturing plan and the fin jig ahead of integration on our test rocket, using a fiberglass fin core and an epoxy layup inside the jig.

Plot of Kn, chamber pressure in psi and thrust in newtons against time in seconds for the experimental grain geometry — **Fig. 9**Thrust vs. time for the experimental grain geometries.

CAD model of a rocket body section with swept fins — **Fig. 10**Fin CAD.

Links

Duke AERO website ↗