About Sandy

Our Sunfire III regeneratively cooled engine, ‘Sandy’, has been designed and manufactured to enter the UK Race to Space competition in July 2024. With N2O and IPA as propellants, the engine was intended to generate 3.5kN of thrust. On the 14th March 2024, we successfully hot-fired Sandy three times! The engine achieved the highest thrust out of any UK collegiate team with a thrust of 4.4kN.

Test 1: 3.6kN burn for 2 seconds
Test 2: 3.8kN burn for 5 seconds
Test 3: 4.4kN burn for 3 seconds

We have Aconity3D GmbH and Airborne Engineering Ltd to thank for their support. We are very grateful to Aconity3D GmbH for printing Sandy in their AlSi10Mg performance alloy, and also to Airborne Engineering Ltd for the help with the hot-fire, providing their expertise, and use of their test stand. We are looking forward to re-firing this AlSi10Mg regeneratively cooled engine in July 2024, pushing for a burn time of over 10 seconds!