A Brief History
Thunderbolt is a flight proven, competition ready rocket designed, built, and operated by students at Texas A&M University. The selected propulsion system is a commercial M-class hybrid motor, which is loaded with liquid nitrous oxide before flight, and fired remotely with our launch controler.
Thunderbolt was originaly built to compete in the 2026 International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), the largest rocketry competition in the world. Over 150 collegiate teams worldwide perticipated in IREC 2026. Since its conception, Ignitors Rocketry has made two launch vehicles for IREC, with Thunderbolt being the first to take to the skies.
A unique payload was carried during flight. Solid martian soil simulant was held in Thunderbolt's nose cone and subjected to the violent forces of rocket flight. When paired with data collected from the flight, the properties of the samples could be analysed prior to a flight to the Internation Space Station. Thunderbolt also carried a custom, student-made flight computer, which recorded the vehicle's trajectory and sent back live data to a ground station.
Thunderbolt in 2026/2027...
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