The young men will both participate in the contest, launching an unmanned rocket that will not leave the Earth's atmosphere. Felix Hattwig is German and has been studying Physics at ETH Zürich in Switzerland since 2022. Julian Montes was studying at the University of St. Gallen, also in Switzerland. They are part of ARIS, a student-led aerospace engineering team associated with the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zürich).


The Portugal News (TPN): What is the purpose of the rocket?

Felix Hattwig (FH): I think that there is a difference between the purpose of the rocket itself, and the purpose of the project.

The purpose of the rocket itself is to build a sounding rocket, which is an unmanned scientific rocket flying only inside the Earth's atmosphere.

We have implemented three different scientific payloads, combined from three different experiments from schools in Switzerland and Spain.

That's the purpose of the rocket itself, to launch science experiments into the atmosphere.

But the purpose of the project is to get more technical insight and generating knowledge.

For four years we've worked on a guided recovery system using a steerable parachute, which is the unique part of our rocket. And now we want to perfect it, and get it down to the needed criteria. Our main goal is the ability to navigate the rocket to a specified landing point using T- or O-approach.

TPN: Why did you want to participate?


We want to take part in the European Rocketry Challenge, which takes place at Ponte de Sôr. There, we will be showing our rocket in an exhibition and, later in the week, launch it at Santa Margarita Aerospace range. We have chosen EuRoC specifically as it's close to Switzerland, lowering our transport costs, and in our opinion, EuRoC is more professional than other rocketry competitions. I think it's the best student rocketry competition in Europe, the most rewarding and you get a lot of feedback from professionals like the Portuguese space agency. So that's why we chose this competition and that's why we want to launch at EuRoC.

TPN: Can you explain how you made the rocket?


The goal of the project is to design, manufacture, test, and then launch the rocket, right? We achieve this with a process which is divided into quite specific phases. The structure is similar to what space agencies such as NASA also use:

In the first month, we define our specific goals and do the SDR (System Definition Review). This includes answering questions such as "how high will we fly?", "What will be our payload?" etc. After this, we move to the PDR (Preliminary Design Review) phase. This phase explores all the options for getting to our goals. We developed many different ideas and did the first simulations. After showing our catalogue of ideas at the review, we select the best options for each component and develop them into the final rocket. In a final review, the CDR (Critical Design Review), we presented our final project to the advisors and alumni, to catch any critical oversights.

After CDR, with all components sent for manufacturing, we go into the winter break to study for our exams. We're still students on the side after all.

After the winter break, all our components are manufactured and we bring it all together. First testing everything individually, then continuously combining all parts. Then, the testing campaign can truly start: On one side the helicopter drop tests, where we improve the steerable parachute system, and the dry runs, where we improve our assembly and operations procedures. These extensive tests are vital to spot oversights and help us be truly ready for launch.

During EuRoC, our main goal is a successful launch. We're also hoping to get feedback on our rocket by industry professionals. They very closely examine our rocket during the flight readiness review, where we can get valuable feedback for future projects.

We do these tests because if we can show that the system has worked successfully already, there's a high chance of it working again. So, after a successful launch, we can declare our systems as flight-proven and use them for further projects as well. And if it isn't successful, we make an analysis of what went wrong, and what things we can improve, and take these insights into the next project.


I am not nervous. No, I think actually we have a great team, and we already had our third dry run which worked very well.

Of course, there are always unexpected things which can go wrong. In the past, we had manufacturing issues which caused a rocket to explode. That was very disheartening, as the team itself had very little influence and the fault was mainly a part of a component we bought from another company. So, there are always things that can go wrong. But I think we are on a good path to get a good system to present.

TPN: What could you say to possible sponsors?

We are a very well-established organization already, filled to the brim with very motivated students. While we all study at universities from around Zürich, we're not directly affiliated with any of them. We have the possibility to make our own decisions and we are motivated to do more, go bigger and have very ambitious goals. ARIS has been successful before, and we are going to live up to that standard. ARIS is technologically quite advanced, with a lot of knowledge from previous projects. But we're always eager for more.

Julian Montes (JM): Going off of what Felix was saying, we do also have other teams. One of them is SAGE, which is working with ESA (the European Space Agency) to make a satellite which will be launched into space and conduct experiments on the aging of cells.

And of course, we need sponsors to make all of this happen. They would receive lots of exposure to the general public, but also from the talent pool which is ARIS itself.

Author

Deeply in love with music and with a guilty pleasure in criminal cases, Bruno G. Santos decided to study Journalism and Communication, hoping to combine both passions into writing. The journalist is also a passionate traveller who likes to write about other cultures and discover the various hidden gems from Portugal and the world. Press card: 8463. 

Bruno G. Santos