FRoDO Rocket Series
The Fantastic Rocket of Darmstadt Origin, FRoDO, was our first high power rocket series. Back in 2022, when the first FRoDO rocket began its development, the team has set themselves an ambitious goal: to participate in the European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC), Europe’s biggest international student rocketry event, in 2024. At EuRoC, which is promoted and organized by the Portuguese Space Agency, the competing student teams launch their rockets to heights of 3000 m and 9000 m.
The FRoDO rockets all used solid propellant rocket motors and were designed to carry several scientific payloads, such as CanSats. In total, there were three FRoDO rockets:
The first demo rocket of this generation, FRoDO-H, made two successful flights to 400 m at the end of 2022 and has been used as a test platform for subsystems and manufacturing methods. It helped the team to gather their first experiences regarding high power rocketry.
In September 2023, the FRoDO-J rocket was launched to a height of 983 m on a launch day in the Netherlands. In addition to a more sophisticated dual stage recovery system and updated avionics, this rocket was able to carry three CanSat payloads to the apogee. The materials and manufacturing methods were improved to withstand the increased loads during flight and landing. Overall, FRoDO-J served as an important stepping stone to get to EuRoC.
The highlight of the rocket series, FRoDO-M, was indeed launched at the 2024 edition of the European Rocketry Challenge, just as the team has planned to back in 2022. After over two and a half years of hard work, the team is very proud to have scored third place in the overall ranking of the competition, establishing TUDSaT as an international player in the academic rocketry community. Using a bi-directional cold-gas thruster system to precisely control the apogee, the rocket climbed to a total height of 2993.7 m - just 6.3 meters away from the 3000 m goal! Additionally, a total mass of 2 kg worth of payloads in form of four CanSats from other student teams were transported in the rocket.
