Who are you?

We are a group of seven students in our final year of BEng Aerospace Engineering, Astronautics and Space Tech (phew...long title!) here at Kingston University. We all have different areas of interest within the industry from Design Engineering, Propulsion to Software Engineering, but all working together to work cohesively and learn new skills along the way!

what does our project entail?

Our project is indeed an exciting one and something we are all proud to be working on for our final year. We are tasked with the design, manufacture and testing of a new rocket engine test stand within the newly constructed Rocket Lab at Roehampton Vale Campus, London.

The test stand will be a specially designed structure to allow future students predominantly here at Kingston University, to test engines of varying sizes between 50N and 2kN forces, with a high level of precision in terms of data recording. The test stand is intended to be operational for many years to come and therefore providing a unique learning and testing tool for future Astro and Aerospace Engineers too utilise. 

The project features a high level of detailed design, analysis and manufacture to ensure that it is safe yet user-friendly allowing a greater scope for future engine designs to fully integrate within this structure. The test stand will be verified to ensure it meets all required standards and does not launch engines into the next town - every possibly safety factor has and will be covered.

WHY IS THIS PROJECT UNIQUE?

Well, anything to do with rockets is pretty unique and exciting and we are hoping that this facility will allow the creative minds of future engineers to begin here and take it forward into industry. Your belief in this project and our work to make it happen will result in something that will really offer future Engineers the opportunity to experiment, not just the theory but in practise - the importance of this before moving into industry cannot be underestimated.

The test stand will be housed within a new state-of-the-art rocket test cell and laboratory, paving the way for forward thinking and creative ideas to be tested safely and help to explore new propulsion concepts. 

Where will the money go?

The costs of this project are pretty transparent and when considering the nature of this project and the impact it will have within the University for future students, the funding requests for this project are very reasonable. We would only want to cover the materials and components costs, printing of safety manuals etc.

One additional thing we would like to add to this project is a time-lapse of design, build and testing for YouTube to fully represent the hard work that has gone into this project. Of course all those that have chosen to back us will be thanked within this video and within our social media outreach. Between us all, we have all of the social media routes covered so this will be shared far and wide within industry circles. It's the least we can do to say thank you for your support. 

The only real difference between our minimum and full target is choice of features:

• Option A (Full target) allows us extras such as additional rollers and therefore a longer operational life.
• Option B (minimum funding) offers a safe and effective, complete fit-for-purpose design.

We could list all of our materials but once we start getting down to nuts and bolts it can be pretty tedious. Just know that we have conducted a huge amount of research to acquire the best prices and value for money on all materials and components. All materials and components are industry standard to ensure they can withstand the requirements of the test stand. 

Rewards

We would love to welcome contributors to come visit the rocket lab and the campus for a tour of our fantastic facilities on our project KU Backer days, to see how funding projects like this make such a difference.

Images and video

Help us succeed!

Even if you feel that you cannot help this particular project financially but can help by spreading the word, this will help us so much - so please do feel free to share away on social media!

Thank-you so much for reading and we hope that we can look forward to reaching our targets