Black Mamba Mock at East Anglia Rocketry Society

Record-Breaking Rockets: The Student Team That Refuses to Stop Reaching for the Sky

How far can a group of university students push the boundaries of rocketry? At Project Sunride, we’re determined to find out. Project Sunride is the University of Sheffield’s student-led rocketry team, with an ambitious goal to design, build, and eventually launch rockets and rocket engines capable of reaching space. And we’re doing this as students, alongside our degrees! 

The project exists to give engineers like us real hands-on experience, bridging the gap between our theoretical knowledge and genuine engineering challenges. How much of your degree have you actually put to test outside of a lecture theatre? That means working through the full engineering cycle; from the first sketch on a whiteboard all the way through to watching the rocket you’ve spent months building disappear into the atmosphere. Along the way, you develop the technical skills, teamwork, and problem-solving mindset that no module can fully teach you. We’re building the next generation of aerospace engineers, developing the skills and experience that set you apart from the rest of your cohort. The team’s progress is measured through testing outcomes, launch performance, hardware recovery, and subsystem improvements, where each builds on the foundation laid by the success of previous projects. 

Project Sunride brings together a large multidisciplinary team of student engineers, working across specialist subteams spanning rocketry, propulsion, avionics, and engine development, and marketing. At the core of this is the Karman Series: a sequence of rockets designed to reach progressively higher altitudes, with the ultimate goal of crossing the Karman Line at 100 km. Yes, we mean actual space. The series has seen significant progress in recent years: Karman Alpha, the first rocket in this series, launched in July 2023, followed by Karman Bravo in June 2024 at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry site in the Mojave Desert, California. Karman Bravo notably featured a smaller-diameter upper stage for improved high-altitude performance. The team conducted four full-scale test flights in the UK ahead of launch to validate systems and operations. Building on this, Karman Charlie advanced the design further with a composite booster and fully aluminium sustainer, and was launched in California in June 2025. Each rocket is a step closer to that 100 km goal, and there’s no sign of us stopping. 

While the Karman Series pushes Sunride even higher, Desert Winds proved that this team isn’t afraid to take on challenges that go far beyond what’s expected of students. Desert Winds made history as the first liquid-fuelled rocket launched by a UK student team, achieving supersonic flight and an apogee of 26,879 ft, and in doing so, breaking the European altitude record for liquid-fuelled rockets. The whole project was designed, built, and launched in just under six months. Six months. By students. This remarkable achievement made it one of Sunride’s most significant achievements to date and a proud moment for the University of Sheffield. Dr Alistair John, Programme Lead for Aerospace Engineering at the University of Sheffield, put it best: “I couldn’t be prouder of the Project Sunride team. In less than a year they have gone from hot firing their first engine to breaking UK and European records… Everyone at Sheffield is incredibly proud of them.”

As for any ambitious engineering project, it never goes perfectly to plan, and Sunride is no exception. During the Karman Bravo launch, an early parachute deployment at Mach 1.6 had cut the flight short of its predicted 37 km (120,000 ft) apogee. Fortunately, all motor casing and flight computers were recovered intact, and the lessons carried forward directed Karman Charlie’s future development. Karman Charlie, however, faced its own issue where whilst the first stage lifted off successfully, the second stage failed to ignite, limiting the apogee to 16,909 ft. Thankfully, all sections of both stages were recovered without damage, and the team walked away with yet another set of lessons to build on. Desert Winds had its own defining moment early in development. During the first cold flow test, a jammed piston caused the fuel tank to compress from the external pressure of the oxidiser. Rather than being discouraged, the team responded by analysing the failure, which led to the incorporation of additional ‘wear rings’ and the redesign of a longer piston for the second cold flow test. It worked. That success gave the green light for what would be Sunride’s most significant achievement yet. 

The results speak for themselves. Desert Winds stands as a historic milestone in UK student rocketry, and the Karman Series continues to push the team toward ever more ambitious goals, gaining invaluable lessons through repeated test campaigns and launch attempts. But beyond the records and the rocket flights, Sunride’s greatest impact is in the engineers it develops. Every member who has worked through a failed test, taken days to redesign a component, or watched their rocket lift off for the first time leaves the project a fundamentally better engineer than when they arrived. Students are able to experience the full engineering cycle, from conceptualisation through to testing and final mission execution. The project supports a broader mission of inspiring the next generation into the aerospace industry and growing engagement with the future of STEM. None of this is possible without the support of partners who share that vision, and the funding provided by RS has played a crucial role in enabling Sunride to keep pushing boundaries and taking on challenges of this scale.

The capabilities of a student-led engineering team should never be underestimated. As the University of Sheffield’s rocket team, Project Sunride has demonstrated exceptional ability in project development and technical advancement, bringing specialist subteams to work on increasingly advanced rockets and propulsion systems. We hope this inspires you to go and do the same. Is there a project idea you’ve been sitting on, waiting for the right moment? Your ideas matter. The project you start today, the team you build around it, and the problems you choose to tackle could lead somewhere beyond anything you can ever imagine. You don’t need to wait to make your mark, so get involved, find your people, and start building something extraordinary!