MCGILL ROCKET TEAM
Subteams /

Aerostructures Projects

AE1: Airframe and Composites

The Airframe Composites team is responsible for building critical structural parts of the rocket and innovating new, and hopefully better, composite manufacturing techniques. We work with materials like carbon fiber and glass fiber composites, both of which are essential for making the rocket strong, lightweight, and reliable.

A composite is a combination of two materials—a fiber (like carbon or glass) and a binder (usually epoxy resin). When combined, they create a material that is far stronger and more resilient than either component alone—vital to ensuring the rocket performs safely under extreme conditions.

Our team collaborates closely with other aerodynamic subteams, especially Jigs and Tooling and the new COPV (Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels) project, sharing designs and manufacturing strategies.

What We Do:

  • Manufacture composite parts for the rocket using carbon and glass fiber
  • Develop and improve layup, curing, and demoulding processes
  • Run hands-on experiments and testing to optimize materials and techniques
  • Incorporate research and development (R&D) throughout the year to boost efficiency and quality

This year, we’re focusing heavily on integrating testing with R&D, something we want to improve from last year. You’ll get to participate in real testing setups, analyze results, and apply what we learn directly into manufacturing. Some team members may even specialize in testing if that's what they want to do.

Our Goal:

To create the cleanest, most efficient layup and demoulding techniques—ensuring that every part we produce is rocket-ready. Through continuous improvement, hands-on experience, and learning from each iteration, we aim to reduce manufacturing time, ensure consistent, flight-ready results, and most importantly to build the best rocket possible!

AE2: Internal Structures

The Internal Structures team is responsible for designing, manufacturing and testing internal components of the rocket. We ensure that the loads experienced by the rocket flow smoothly through the structure without damaging any critical components of other subteams. We achieve this goal while optimizing our designs for ease of assembly and mass efficiency providing good opportunities to learn about proper design practices.

Joining this project will enable new students to:

  • Use Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to model 3D components and develop their creativity when optimizing parts geometry.
  • Learn about various manufacturing methods and proper ways to design parts to reduce cost and assure ease of assembly.
  • Use FEA simulations to ensure the structural integrity of our components, optimize for mass, and understand design failure points and limitations.
  • Run hands-on testing for our most critical and prone to failure parts as well as test their integration with other rocket sub-systems.
  • Learn about sources of stress during flight to properly design a rocket’s inner structure that will deviate loads away from critical components.

Internal structures also stands out from other projects as one that is very collaborative with other subteams, which enables new students to learn about all of the other subteams and understand the meaning of their work within the rocket’s bigger picture.

AE3: Jigs and Tooling

The Jigs and Tooling project involves a variety of smaller projects, which can be tackled individually or in collaboration with a teammate. While some projects are specific to the Aerostructures sub-team, others offer the chance to collaborate with members from different sub-teams, offering exposure to various aspects of the rocket design and assembly!

The Jigs project involves designing a specialized tool or template that guides and supports other tools or workpieces to ensure accurate and consistent results during manufacturing or assembly processes. Often we need to actively communicate with members from different projects and even subteams to ensure our jigs satisfy their needs.

The Tooling projects provide massive amounts of opportunities for hands-on work. Tooling projects involve building the designed jigs using the desired materials, and is also responsible for post-processing the rocket. During these processes you get to learn to operate a variety of power tools to handle materials like woods, aluminum, and other complex composite materials such as Carbon Fiber and Glass Fiber.

Jigs and Tooling projects are a great way to learn or improve CAD skills, engineering drawings, and handling power tools, all of which are very useful in both industry and for personal projects down the line!

AE4: Tank/Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV)

The oxidizer tank is a critical component of the rocket’s hybrid engine, as it holds the nitrous oxide (N2O) used for fuel combustion during powered flight. Although it has traditionally been made out of aluminum, optimizing the mass of the tank has become increasingly necessary as we aim to achieve higher peak altitudes. This has motivated the development of a composite tank, or COPV – a lightweight, thin metal liner wrapped with carbon fiber using a filament winding process.

By joining the COPV project, you will have the opportunity to:

  • Participate in pressure testing of the COPV at the MRT test site, including burst and hydrostatic testing
  • Get hands-on experience in testing the mechanical properties of our composite laminate
  • Discover how filament winding is performed
  • Learn about composite theory and develop code to analyse our composite laminate
  • Become familiar with computer-aided design software (CAD) by taking part in the design process of connector rings and other relevant components
  • Perform finite element analysis (FEAs) on the tank model to validate its structural integrity
  • Learn how the tank integrates with the rest of the propulsion assembly

AE5: Engine Heat Shields

The Engine Heat Shields project is tasked with designing and manufacturing the heat-resistant components of our rocket’s engine. More specifically, these are a composite liner, which prevents burn-through of the thrust chamber casing, and composite spacers, which hold the fuel in place axially and allow for the mixing of combusted fuel before it enters the nozzle. With a high flame temperature, the spacers and liners are critical to maintaining the structural integrity of the rocket.

This year, our main focus will be manufacturing composite spacers for the various hot-fire tests planned throughout the year, while also developing and producing our own composite liners to avoid dependence on Commercial Off-The-Shelf liners.

We will work on improving our spacer recipe that has been developed in previous years, research and make our own liners, run thermal simulations, and conduct practical testing. Officially under Aerostructures and working closely with Propulsion for dimensions, parameters, and timelines, EHS is a highly collaborative project, heavy in research and design, with a lot of hands-on work.

If you are interested in composites, simulation, materials and manufacturing, this project offers a rare opportunity to take a component from research and design all the way to a hot-fire test.

AE6: Bay Structures

Bay Structures is responsible for building two major structures inside the rocket: the payload bay, which houses the experiment, and the avionics bay, which houses the flight computer and supporting electronics. Incoming members will be able to:

  • Design and analyze new parts using Siemens NX as the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software.
  • Conduct research on how payload and avionics components would best be integrated with the rocket’s structure.
  • Structurally validate designed components using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) simulations of the structures.
  • Gain experience in 3D printing structural components.
  • Interact with the Aerostructures, Payload, and Avionics subteams

Project AE6 as a whole is an opportunity for recruits who want to learn and work on mechanical design, analysis, and testing in a novel and challenging setting.