Phoenix I

The Phoenix I Story

Imagined as the team's first rocket, the Phoenix I was designed to launch from Olin's athletic fields. The rocket was primarily to test the team's ability to complete the aerospace design process and was an amazing learning experience even without an attempted flight. Phoenix I was horribly overscoped and taught the team a valuable lesson about technology development and just how important it was to gradually develop technologies. Essentially, the plan was to make the Phoenix I a smaller version of the IREC rocket we were planning to build later. This included a flight computer activated recovery system and a non pyrotechnic parachute deployment system, both of which are still under active development by the team today. Regardless, the team moved on the next year and began development of the Phoenix II.