Deimos

2022 - 2023

Project Leads

• Team Lead: Harrison Dean
• Chief Engineer: Jack Gardiner
• Systems Engineer: Neel Pawar

Project Description

Deimos was ARES’ first entry into the 30,000 ft commercial-off-the-shelf category at the 2023 Spaceport America Cup (now International Rocket Engineering Competition). Deimos represented a big step forward in the team’s technical abilities, seeing numerous student-designed systems such as a CO₂ parachute ejection mechanism and the team’s first CNC machined metal parts flying on the rocket. Deimos, like Phobos, featured an aerodynamic transition for increased altitude performance. Deimos was ARES’ first rocket to fly the team’s student-developed flight computer Hermes, which was chosen for presentation in a podium session at the competition. Deimos suffered a catastrophic failure at an altitude of 7,000 ft which caused its airframe to be destroyed. ARES placed 9^th for design and build quality, but the team’s flight performance score led to an overall rank of 74 out of 119 teams.