To have a rocket ready in three years that can land on its engine with biofuel. That is the ultimate goal for student team RISE, short for Rocketry Innovations & Space Engineering. Not only ambitious, but above all desperately needed, because thanks in part to Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, the number of rocket launches has more than doubled within a few years, and with it carbon dioxide emissions. Rockets emit their pollutants all the way from the Earth's surface to the mesosphere. And pollution in those upper layers lingers much longer than that in lower parts of the atmosphere.
RISE consists of students from the joint UT and VU Mechanical Engineering programme. Team manager Nathan Jacques: "With our team we innovate in making rocket technologies more sustainable. We are at a tipping point worldwide; the rocket industry has to change. Think about the recycling of materials and the fuel used. We very much want to play a role in this. That is why we are working on a rocket that runs on biofuel and that we can send back to earth very precisely for a soft landing. This will make it possible to reuse the launched vehicle."