Spaceport America Cup

KXR's Latest Entry into the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition

A student researched and developed hybrid rocket targetting a 10,000 feet apogee, carrying a 6U CubeSat experimental payload and cutting edge avionics system. KXR competed against more than 150 teams from across the planet in the largest collegiate rocketry competition in the world.

Meet Pegasus

A bleeding edge sounding rocket, built by our talented students following aerospace industry specifications and procedures. The rocket is built to propel a 6U experimental cubesat payload up to a target apogee of 10,000 feet.

The airframe is completely student developed to minimize weight while also maximizing strength by implementing carbon fiber.

Pegasus is powered by a paraffin-based hybrid rocket motor fully developed and tested by students, and produces nearly 600 pounds of thrust at liftoff. Nitrous Oxide was chosen as the oxidizer due to its availability and self pressurizing properties.

Launching Pegasus

Unfortunately due to Nitrous Oxide supply chain issues leading up to the 2023 IREC competition, Pegasus was unable to fly during the event. Despite this, the IREC team gained valuable experience at the New Mexico competition and was able to validate their launch preparation procedures.

To honor the work and dedication that was put into the rocket, as well as to verify the technology of KXR's hybrid development, Pegasus was successfully launched at a local launch site in November 2023.

This launch provided an insightful opportunity for the 2023-2024 competition teams to gain hands-on launch skills for their current projects.