Space Raiders — Raider Aerospace Society

About Space Raiders

Space Raiders was formed back in August, 2017 and was aimed at aggressively expanding our university’s aerospace opportunities via competitive high-powered rocketry. During the 2017-2018 season, Space Raiders competed in NASA’s student launch initiative marking or foray into intercollegiate rocketry. Last build season, we took a development year to focus on expanding our capabilities and develop skills in new members, launching a 14-foot tall N-Class rocket in May, 2019. Space Raiders is here to compete with the best this coming year and will look to make waves at this year’s University SLI.

2022-2023 Spaceport America Cup

Space Raiders was accepted and competed in the 2023 Spaceport America Cup for the first time ever in the organization. The team launched a rocket called Centennial Champion that is a 13’ long, 6” diameter rocket that flew on an Aerotech N2000W. Centennial Champion was launched twice, the test launch was in May at Seymour, Texas at the North Tripoli Launch Site. The final launch was at Spaceport during the competition.

2021-2022 Matador Two

During the 2021-2022 year, Space Raiders goal was to design, build, test, and launch a level 2 rocket to gain experience for future competitions we hope to apply for. A successful flight is crucial for the admission phase when applying to compete in any rocket competition. Matador II is a 4-inch diameter, 60lb rocket flying on a Cesaroni L1395 that achieved a speed of 1.5 Mach reaching 10,000ft. The mission was a success with a successful recovery of the rocket without any damage.

2019-2020 NASA USLI Documentation

Proposal

PDF 2,630 KB

Proposal for NASA’s 2019-2020 University Student Launch Initiative outlining project goals, proposed designs, and plans for the 2019-2020 season.

This report package contains preliminary designs and evaluates design risks, efficacy, and establishes the basis for subsequent designs.

PDR Report

PDF 5,231 KB

PDR Presentation

PDF 4,586 KB

PDR Flysheet

PDF 65 KB

2018-2019 MatadorOne

The Matador One is a 14' long, 6" diameter rocket developed by the Raider Aerospace Society at Texas Tech University. This student designed rocket carried two payloads, one for NASA research and the other for CERN. The NASA payload is a series of microfluidic plates intended for future flight to Enceladus, a moon of Saturn and the CERN payload is Muon particle detector.

2017-2018 NASA USLI Documentation

Proposal

PDF 3,246 KB

Proposal for NASA’s 2017-2018 University Student Launch Initiative outlining project goals, proposed designs, and plans for the 2017-2018 season.

PDR Report

PDF 6,182 KB

PDR Presentation

PDF 2,127 KB

PDR Flysheet

PDF 369 KB

PDR Motor Chart

XLSX 19.1 KB

This report package contains preliminary designs and evaluates design risks, efficacy, and establishes the basis for subsequent designs.

CDR Report

PDF 9,447 KB

CDR Presentation

PDF 2,280 KB

CDR Flysheet

PDF 377 KB

This report package contains our critical designs intended for competition. In it our final designs evaluate risk and efficacy, while explaining and justifying the design in the most complete manner possible.