SEDS UCSD - Help Us Launch Vesper-Martini Rocket
Our Story
Over the past few months, our student team at UCSD has been
building and testing a high-altitude liquid sounding rocket from the
ground up.
Vesper
Martini is our second LOX/alcohol rocket designed to
let us test fast, learn quickly, and keep improving. A few weeks ago,
we brought Vesper out to the Mojave Desert and conducted our first
full static fire campaign. Lighting the engine to produce its full
2700 N of force while the rocket is held in place, measuring thrust,
pressures, and performance.
It didn’t go perfectly. Our first attempt ended in a hard start
that damaged the engine and parts of our ground systems. For most
teams, that would have ended the campaign. Instead, we went back,
rebuilt everything, and returned to the test site just three and a
half weeks later. On our second attempt, we achieved a full-duration
burn and surpassed our thrust targets, a major milestone for our
program and the second time in UCSD history a liquid bi-propellant
rocket has been static-fired on the pad, beating our own record.
Along the way, we learned a lot. We also pushed our hardware to its
limits. The engine failed at shutdown, which is exactly the kind of
problem you only find by testing real systems. Now we’re moving
forward. We’re redesigning the engine to improve durability and
preparing for our next test in just a few weeks. After that, our goal
is to take Vesper from the test stand to an actual launch to 15000 ft.
Why We’re Fundraising
Building and testing rockets is expensive, even at our scale.
Every test requires:
Why We’re Fundraising
Building and testing rockets is expensive, even at our scale.
Every test requires:
- Aerospace grade valves, sensors, and electronics
- Propellants, liquid oxygen, and high pressure nitrogen gas deliveries
- Machined engine components
- Safety equipment and testing operations to ensure our tests run smoothly.
When something fails, we don’t stop. We rebuild and go again.
That’s how progress happens, but it comes at a cost.
Your support will go directly toward:
Your support will go directly toward:
- Manufacturing the next engine iteration
- Purchasing materials for our rocket's propulsion systems
- Testing of parachute deployment and avionics to get Vesper to its first flight!
What This Means to Us
This isn’t just a class project. We’re a group of students spending nights, weekends, and half of our weekends out in the desert building real hardware and running industry-level rocket engine testing operations. Everything we do is hands-on: design, manufacturing, assembly, testing, and iteration and for many of us, and it’s shaping what we’ll go on to do after graduation.
How You Can Help
If you’re able to contribute, it directly helps us keep building and testing. ALL CONTRIBUTORS, no matter how small, will get to fly to 15000ft with your name or short message of your choice as Vesper's payload! If not, sharing this with others still makes a big difference.
Thanks for supporting Vesper.
This isn’t just a class project. We’re a group of students spending nights, weekends, and half of our weekends out in the desert building real hardware and running industry-level rocket engine testing operations. Everything we do is hands-on: design, manufacturing, assembly, testing, and iteration and for many of us, and it’s shaping what we’ll go on to do after graduation.
How You Can Help
If you’re able to contribute, it directly helps us keep building and testing. ALL CONTRIBUTORS, no matter how small, will get to fly to 15000ft with your name or short message of your choice as Vesper's payload! If not, sharing this with others still makes a big difference.
Thanks for supporting Vesper.
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