TU Wien Space team wants to travel to space

The students of the TU Vienna Space Team plan to try to achieve a world record, that is, to fly at an altitude of 100,000 km with a two-stage rocket, developed and built exclusively by students, and therefore officially into space.

to Bull pant

Not only can NASA and the European Space Agency build rockets. Independent student teams such as TU Wien Space Team are penetrating outer space more and more. with her current project “dog” About 200 space enthusiasts plan to try to set European records. In the Black Rock Desert, in Nevada (USA), the theater of the annual Burning Man Festival, a self-made rocket made in Austria is scheduled to be launched between September 20 and 23. The goal is to cross the official boundary into space and, ideally, to set a new world record for students.

The current European altitude record for an “experimental rocket built by a team of students” is 32.3 kilometers. Created by the team hind at the University of Stuttgart. One US team In 2019, it was possible for the first time to reach the Karman line (100 km altitude) with a homemade missile. President Patrick Enzenberger, head of the space team from Vienna, says they now at least want to equal that world record.

The idea for “The Hound” was born in 2014, says project manager Christoph Frolich. After the space team successfully built the first rocket in 2010—originally built from a student project—they wanted to go higher and higher. “We asked ourselves what is possible with the technology available to us and what we can improve ourselves,” Frolich says.

It soon became clear that space was “at hand” for the student team. The first major milestone was reached in 2016 with the successful launch of a two-stage solid-fuel rocket. Nearly six years later, development has progressed so far as the countdown to “The Hound” has begun.

return
From
tracking

In the following weeks, we’ll be on the FM4 Morning Show to see if the TU Wien Space Team hits the big goal of space. The Starlink Internet connection is already in the Black Rock Desert, and “The Hound” should soon be cleared by US Customs in San Francisco, says Patrick Enzenberger. Then it’s just a matter of hoping you won’t get in the way of a sandstorm or after-hours party at Burning Man Festival.