Our passion
A new journey
16 September 2019 marked the start of the first ETH Focus Project organized by ARIS. The successor of project RHEA comprises of 8 bachelor students in mechanical engineering.
Our passion for engineering and our fascination for space motivate us to work to solve new challenges almost full time under the supervision of Prof. Lino Guzzella from the Institute of Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC) of ETH Zürich.
Our mission
Building a hybrid rocket engine
We are building the second generation hybrid rocket engine of ARIS. Our aim is to build a reliable hybrid rocket engine which can provide 5 kN thrust to propel a sounding rocket.
Our engine is named IRIDE (ì-ri-de), Italian for iris, the colored part of the eye. The name is related to the Greek goddess Iris, messenger of the gods and patroness of the rainbow, sea and sky. She is often represented as a flying hybrid creature, just what we aim to achieve with our engine.

Our concept
What is a hybrid rocket engine?

There are three types of rocket engines: liquid, solid and hybrid. In our hybrid rocket engine we use a solid fuel and liquid oxidizer. This offers us the following advantages compared to the other two engine types:
High Safety
Our hybrid rocket engine shows better safety characteristics than liquid and solid engines.
Low Complexity
Our hybrid rocket engine shows lower complexity than liquid engines.
Controllability
Thrust throttling can enable our engine to reach a desired height by performing accordingly.
Research and Innovation
Our hybrid rocket engine enables us to make steps in development in less researched area of aerospace industry.
Our goals

PEAK THRUST

BURN TIME

RELIABLE

MODULAR
Our test infrastructure
Our container enables us to safely monitor the firing operations
Our container is split in three parts: engine compartment, fluid supply system compartment and electronics compartment. Through our electronics compartment we can establish a connection to our bunker and monitor the engine performance from a safe distance.
Our Team

Shady Elshater
Project Manager & System Engineer

Pascal Müller
Control & Testing

Julius Wymann
Injector & Casing

Ianco Cregut
Grain & Casing

Felix Winghart
Fluid Supply System

Mirela Minkova
Control & Media

Philip Wolf
Igniter & Testbench

Stefan Schmid
Nozzle & Testbench
Background image source: https://launcherspace.com/engine-2