Propulsion
Motor integration, thrust curves, and Icarus: our in-house hybrid engine in development alongside the commercial motors we fly today.
Propulsion handles commercial motor selection and integration for the competition airframe each year: reload cases, thrust curves, and the hardware that holds the motor in the tube. Alongside that, the subteam develops Icarus, the team's in-house hybrid engine (N₂O and paraffin wax), with static fires and Tech-Dev Challenge entries at Launch Canada. Day to day that means test-stand work, fuel casting, injector and chamber design, and the safety procedures that come with working on live propellants.
First year
Shadow a motor install in the airframe, help prep a fuel grain or test fixture, and sit in on a cold-flow or static-fire test day. No prior propulsion experience needed; safety training comes first.
Useful, not required
MATLAB or Python for thrust and chamber sizing, CAD for mounts and test hardware, and comfort following written procedures in the shop. Chemistry or mechanical background helps for Icarus; COTS integration is mostly mechanical.
About 6 h / week
Every other subteam.
Each one takes members with no experience every term.
Airframe
Structures and aerodynamics: simulation, analysis, CAD and machining. The airframe has to survive peak loading and come back straight.
Avionics
Flight computers and telemetry: embedded firmware and PCB design in KiCad. This subteam decides when every event on the flight fires.
Composites
Carbon and fibreglass layup, tooling, and the finishing that makes it fly straight.
Operations
Graphic design, merch, and social media. What people see when they have never set foot in the shop.
Payload
The experiment we fly, and most years the reason the rocket exists at all. CAD, electrical and software all sit on it.
Recovery
Dual-deployment parachutes and the sequencing that brings the vehicle back intact.
Who runs it.
Named leads, so you know who to ask.
We hire first years.
We hire people who have never touched a rocket. Come ready to learn. We'll teach the rest.
Find us at Facultyfest on August 31, 12:30 to 17:00, or Clubsfest on September 14, 16:30 to 19:30 on the JHE field. Applications close September 18. You don't need to be an engineer: we need people on operations as much as on airframe.