About Rice Eclipse

We are Rice University’s student rocketry team. Our mission is to enrich the undergraduate and graduate education of our members with project-based learning to develop cutting edge aerospace technologies. We develop launch vehicles for intercollegiate rocketry competitions, rocket engines, avionics hardware & software - and more!

Rice Eclipse is a diverse and constantly growing club, expanding from 5 to over 50 members since its founding in 2014. Majors represented include materials science, computer science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, economics, and many more!

Our ranks include undergraduate and graduate students. Our members learn practical skills like design and fabrication from their peers long before they encounter these topics in their courses. We are brought together by a passion for learning and innovation, and every member is dedicated to helping their teammates reach their full potential as future engineers and scientists, no matter their skill or academic level.

If you are a Rice student interested in joining our endeavor, please reach out to us! New member interest and intro meetings are held at the beginning of each semester. The dates, times, and locations of intro meetings will be posted on this website. No applications, just show up and explore what our various teams are working on!

Get Involved

Projects

COMING SOON

Archimedes

Archimedes will be the realization of Rice Eclipse’s long term goal of competing in the 30,000 foot SRAD division of the Spaceport America Cup. Like all of our competition rockets, Archimedes will be completely designed and fabricated in-house by our Aerodynamics Team. However, rather than purchasing a commercial solid motor, it will be powered by Titan II, our in-house developed hybrid rocket engine. This project will begin in earnest in Fall 2023 and the Archimedes vehicle will take flight at the 2024 Spaceport America Cup.

Learn more about Icarus and Dædalus

Icarus and Dædalus

Icarus and Dædalus is Eclipse’s 2023 Spaceport America Cup competition rocket, competing in the 30,000 ft Commercial off the Shelf division. This is the first dual stage high-powered rocket built by our Aerodynamics team, which new staging telemetry encorporated. It features in-house manufactured fins, body tubes, and couplers, as well as machined internal structures. In addition, each stage features a dual-separation recovery system. The payload involves deploying an autonomous drone at an altitude of 3,000 feet, which will then take photos of the ground below and use computer vision algorithms to stitch these images together, generating a georeferenced map of the terrain. It also houses an SRAD flight telemetry system which transmits flight data in real time to an SRAD ground station.

COMING SOON

Proxima

Proxima is a small hybrid rocket engine that is currently early in development and slated to enter service in the 2023-2024 academic year as a static testing engine. The purpose of the Proxima project is to replace the obsolete Luna testing platform with a more robust system that takes all of our lessons of the past four years to produce more precise, reliable, and repeatable data.

Learn more about Titan II

Titan II

The Titan engine series (Titan & Titan II) is Rice Eclipse’s program to develop a flight-optimized hybrid rocket engine. Titan and Titan II use an HTPB mixture as solid fuel and liquid nitrous oxide as oxidizer.

Learn more about Avionics

Rice Eclipse Software for Engine Testing & ARCA

RESFET is Rice Eclipse’s proprietary software package for hybrid rocket engine tests. ARCA is Eclipse’s ground system control software for engine tests. It outputs commands, such as igniting the engine, controlling the valves, and regulating the heating tape on the engine oxidizer tank.