Developing the most advanced waterrocket.

Poseidon_Logo4C1_tagline
Electronically controlled waterrocket with Thrust Vectoring, Guidance/Navigation and many more features.

For a general overview, please check out the timeline down below.

To read more about our current engineering efforts visit the Development Blog.

If you are interested in in-depth videos about the project give our Youtube channel a try!

fixed airframe rocket

Pathfinder 1/2

retired

gimbaled airframe poseidon

Pathfinder 2/2

in use: testing

son of Poseidon

first flying vehicle

development

Waterrocket with TVC

controlled flight

development

Making Carbon Composite Tanks!

Both Tanks we build so far are made out of carbon and glass fibre composite with an epoxy matrix. The tanks consist of an inner composite liner, two composite bulkheads with a threaded aluminium adapter embedded, and a composite sleeve over the whole thing.We used a 6K 70mm carbon fibre sleeve and an 80g/m2 plain weave glass fibre fabric, combined with Resoltech 1050/1056S epoxy resin as the matrix. Tank Alpha Alpha's liner is made out of the carbon fibre sleeve, hand laminated over a 80mm diameter tube as mandril. We used some backing paper over the tube to prevent the ...

Avionics Schematics and Layout

Moving from FAR to GAP, we're building a whole (almost flight worthy) rocket. This includes the corresponding Avionics, which we will look at in more detail here. This first version of the avionics PCB should function as a trial and guide for subsequent flight-ready boards. Accordingly, it should have equivalent or at least similar components and layout. Requirements The Avionics has to meet certain requirements, for all the stuff it needs to do: Connected to launch control computer (10's of meters away). For GAP, which is not supposed to lift off, a telemetry connection is viable as cable or via ...

Machining fittings for Poseidon!

We machined the fittings for the poseidon water rocket in the student workshop of our university. After turning the two fittings in a lathe, boring the axial holes and cutting the axial theads, we milled the sides and drilled the radial holes. The left fitting connects the main valve (inner thread, G1/4) to the water tank (outer thread, G1/4) and depress valve (radial hole, G1/8). The right fitting connects the quick disconnect adapter (radial hole, G1/8) to the air tank (outer thread, G1/4), and has thread (M8) for the parachute eyebolt. Technical Drawings Down below are the technical drawings for ...

Timeline

In the beginning we have to figure out if our target is realistic.
Shouldn't that be the case we need to define a new one. Because the math behind waterrockets is quite complicated, we decided to build the pathfinder test-vehicle FAR (fixed airframe rocket).
As the name suggests, it is fixed to the ground, so not quite a rocket yet. But it is basically an early prototype of the planned Poseidon-Rocket, which is held down by load cells.
This enables us to measure the thrust curve and change in mass over time. With that data we should be able to build a mathematic model and decide whether our goals are feasible or not.

The next logical step after that is the devolpment of a vehicle which verifies our general design of the Poseidon rocket while still being mounted to the ground.
For that purpose we will build the Gimbaled Airframe Poseidon (GAP).
In contrast to FAR, GAP is mounted in a gimbal suspension and will be able to rotate freely around three axes.
We will use this pathfinder vehicle to test our TVC-Mount (Thrust Vectoring Control) and the stability-software which should keep the rocket upright.
We decided to implement this additional phase into the timeline to mature our hard- and software before our first flight attempt.

Triton will be the first big rocket we launch.

Triton is a smaller rocket than Poseidon and will feature one thing that GAP lacked: A parachute and recovery system.
It will serve as a general flight test platform, testing among others the recovery system, sensor behavior during flight like apogee detection, reliability of the telemetry radio and more.

With the knowledge from GAP and Triton we will develop the Poseidon rocket.

After some ground test of the rocket with focus on the new systems like recovery, Poseidon will be ready for the first flight.

We don't expect the first flight to be a successful one, but we hope that we won't break too much hardware, because we tested the key systems early and intensive.

We don't want to talk about our future plans too much right now, because the way to the first successful flight of Poseidon will be a long and bumpy one.

Just one thing to think about: There is a valve on Poseidon controlling the pressure in the water tank. This could enable us to perform multiple burns. Random examples for that are a deceleration-burn or a landing burn. But of course these were chosen totally arbitrarily!

Project Poseidon on Youtube