Tufts SEDS Rocketry Team

KINDLEVAN - International Rocketry Engineering Competition 2026

For my senior year, I served as Team Co-lead and Chief Engineer for KINDLEVAN, Tufts Rocketry's third IREC competition rocket. Returning to the 10,000 ft COTS category, KINDLEVAN flew a payload carrying 4x solar panels to evaluate the efficiency of energy generation at varying atmospheric densities. To precisely control apogee, the team developed a set of air brakes to evaluate active kinematic data and extend accordingly, increasing cross-sectional area and thus drag forces to limit apogee overshoot. During the fall semester I focused on leading the design process and determining system requirements and necessary tests to validate our vehicle. The spring semester was full of late nights manufacturing, putting together project technical deliverables, and test flights. This was the most difficult project I've taken on yet, but in the end it was worth it. With a stunning competition performance, we placed 8th out of 144 teams worldwide, and 5th place in the 10k COTS category.

The diagram above pictures the KINDLEVAN Concept of Operations. The flight begins at motor ignition and the rocket begins moving. Soon enough the vehicle has cleared the rail and reaches a peak velocity of 945 ft/s during the boost phase. Once boost ends, the air brakes are active, taking in real-time data and adjusting extension accordingly. This continues until the vehicle reaches its apogee, at which point the air brakes retract and the nosecone separates, deploying the drogue parachute. This separation also exposes the payload solar panels to sunlight and the data collection begins. At 1200 ft the booster section separates and the main parachute is deployed, gently guiding the vehicle to the ground. The entire flight takes just over 3 minutes.

Payload form-factor and solar panel placement

Air Brake rack-and-pinion mechanism

The end of the fall semester culminated in the Preliminary Design Review, a 4 hour presentation for key stakeholders and mentors. The presentation slides are listed below.

KINDLEVAN Preliminary Design Review

Test Flight 1

After several late nights manufacturing, KINDLEVAN was ready for its first test flight on February 22nd. The goals of this flight were to validate the airframe robustness, recovery calculations, and stability of vehicle in-flight. We launched on Lake Winnipesauke in NH. The flight was stable and KINDLEVAN reached 5,305 ft on an Aerotech L2200. The team collected good onboard footage, although the SRAD boards had some issues collecting data due to a code error. This bug was corrected soon after for all future flights.

Test Flight 2

While Test Flight 1 succeeded, Test Flight 2 was a disaster. The plan was to fly the air brakes active and validate the triggering of CO2 energetics with the custom flight computers. However, sometime during integration, the nozzle of our Aerotech M2400 cracked at the edge. Upon ignition, half of the nozzle sheared off, redirecting the thrust to the side and causing the vehicle to spin uncontrollably after clearing the rail. The rocket landed hard, shattering centering rings in the fin assembly and warping the edges of the airframe.

Thrust redirected at ignition

Undamaged forward

Fin assembly damages

Upon assessment, there was no chance of acquiring another aft airframe tube in time for the competition. Just when all hope seemed lost, two underclassman on the team figured out a way to separate the epoxy from the fiberglass with a heat gun and tools. With this method, the aft airframe was salvaged and rebuilt with replaced materials. In the meantime, I focused on building Hercules, as an alternative method to validating the custom flight computers for use at competition. At the same time, the team leads put together the Technical Report, the ultimate deliverable for IREC 2026.

Team100_Tufts University_Project Technical Report.pdf

Competition Flight

In June 2026, the team went to West Texas to compete at the IREC. The vehicle was rebuilt and recently wrapped by a sponsor. After several delays due to weather, we were able to launch on Saturday, flying to an impressive 9,915 ft, just 0.85% from target apogee. This also marked the team's first successful use of CO2 for recovery deployment. Unfortunately, the onboard camera SD card chipped and ground GoPros overheated in the Texas sun, resulting in a lack of high-definition launch footage.

With this incredible flight we were able to place 8th overall and 5th place in category. This accomplishment puts us in the top 4% of college teams in the world, across 6 continents and 20 countries.

Home

All Rockets

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse