Development programme
Flight test vehicles
Rockets built to isolate risk, validate new systems in flight and carry proven technology into larger competition vehicles.
Active roll-control demonstrator
Sguaba
Tuinne
Sguaba Tuinne is HiPR's flight-test vehicle for active roll control. Canards mounted in the nose alter the vehicle's roll in flight, creating a practical route from wind-tunnel data to closed-loop control on a rocket.
The first campaign was cut short by a motor failure. Rebuilt and reflown, the vehicle subsequently demonstrated the experimental canard system in flight and supplied the data needed to scale the architecture toward supersonic vehicles.
- Purpose
- Active roll control
- Control surfaces
- Nose-mounted canards
- Validation
- Wind tunnel + flight
- Campaign
- Repeated test launches
Pneumatic recovery demonstrator
Feth
Fiada
Feth Fiada was built to move HiPR's CO₂ recovery concept out of the workshop and into repeated flight. The 3-inch vehicle used a servo-driven, flame-hardened steel piston to pierce a 16-gram CO₂ cartridge and pressurise the recovery bay.
Three flights exposed the system to real launch loads and recovery conditions. Each test informed the larger twin-cartridge assembly later integrated into Badhbh.
- Airframe
- 3 in · 1.334 m
- Recovery medium
- 16 g CO₂ cartridge
- Actuation
- 35 kg servo
- Campaign
- 3 flights
First high-powered vehicle
Sionna
Sionna was HiPR's first high-powered rocket: a 3-inch vehicle built to establish the team's manufacturing, launch and flight operations before the first international competition campaign.
It flew stably on a J motor to approximately 1.5 kilometres during International Rocketry Week in Glasgow. The recovery failure provided the operational lessons carried into EuRoC 2024.
- Airframe
- 3 in · 1.34 m
- Motor class
- J
- Apogee
- ≈1.5 km
- Campaign
- International Rocketry Week
Sionna · 1.34 m
Build the next test vehicle
Flight testing turns new mechanisms, avionics and control ideas into systems the competition programme can trust.