Follow the latest developments across AERE’s student-led aerospace teams. Explore project milestones, engineering progress, testing activities, and competition updates as our teams turn ambitious ideas into working systems.
-
IREC 2026 – Heart Attack and Metal Heart
During the 2026 International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), AERE’s High Powered Rocketry team launched its first fully in-house-developed launch vehicle, Heart Attack. The rocket successfully reached approximately 8,000 feet above ground level and completed a full-points recovery, marking an important milestone for the team’s launch vehicle development efforts. Heart Attack carried a student-developed avionics system…
-
Husky Air: 2025–2026 SAE Aero Design
During the 2025–2026 season, AERE’s Husky Air team designed and manufactured a high-wing radio-controlled aircraft for the SAE Aero Design competition. The aircraft featured a 10-foot wingspan, twin electric motors, a conventional tail, and a lightweight balsa-frame structure reinforced with aluminum spars. Throughout the development process, the team conducted aerodynamic analysis, structural testing, and manufacturing,…
-
Spring 2025 – Demo Plane
Spring 2025 marked the first semester of AERE and the beginning of its Husky Air team. During this initial semester, the team focused on developing the engineering knowledge and design capabilities needed to create an aircraft that could meet the requirements of its intended competition. Students worked through the aircraft design process, gaining experience in…
-
Autonomous Flight Control Development
During the fall semester of 2025, AERE’s Keweenaw Propulsion Lab (KPL) began developing an autonomous flight control system intended to support future flight testing and vehicle control research. The project focuses on creating a system capable of controlling a test vehicle during both hovering and short vertical flights, commonly referred to as hops. The initial…
-
Rocket-1: Development and Manufacturing
During the summer semester of 2025, AERE’s Keweenaw Propulsion Lab (KPL) began work on Rocket-1, a project focused on developing and manufacturing a rocket engine and its associated ground support equipment. Using the Mojave Sphinx guidebook as a reference, the team began manufacturing and assembling components for the rocket and its supporting systems. This work…
-
IREC 2025 – Questionable Lineage
Spring 2025 marked the first semester of AERE and its High Powered Rocketry (HPR) team. During this semester, HPR partnered with the Keweenaw Rocket Range rocketry club to compete in the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC). The two groups divided their responsibilities, with HPR focusing on payload development while Keweenaw Rocket Range designed and built…