Æther is a sounding rocket designed and built entirely by students of ISAE-Supaero in Toulouse.

At its core is a 3kN hybrid engine running on green, non-toxic, storable propellants, but the project covers everything the rocket needs to fly: structure, avionics, recovery, and ground systems.

We're building Æther to compete in EuRoC 2027, the European Rocketry Challenge.

The engine works by decomposing hydrogen peroxide in a catalyst bed and injecting it into a 3D-printed ABS fuel grain, a unique propellant combination for a student project.

In November 2025, we tested a full-scale engine and feed system at ONERA, our first major milestone on the road to flight. The feed system proved compatible with hydrogen peroxide, our operating procedures were validated, and the engine fired nominally.

Run at half the design mass flow rate, the test wasn't a flight validation, but it produced valuable results, published at the Space Propulsion Conference in 2026. We're now iterating on the engine, while the rest of the rocket, structure, avionics, and recovery, moves forward in parallel.

This project only exists thanks to our sponsors. Airbus, ISAE-Supaero, Fondation Supaero, and HyPrSpace provide financial support, and ONERA gives us access to its test facilities and expertise.

Heraeus Precious Metals supplies our platinum catalyst pellets, and Olmec Advanced Materials manufactures the graphite for our nozzle.

Read our published research:

📄 Design and testing of the combustion chamber of a H2O2/ABS student-developed hybrid rocket engine 📄 Advancements in the Development of the Subsystems for a Student-Developed H2O2/ABS Hybrid Propellant Rocket Engine 📄 Design and Testing of the Propulsion System of an HTP/ABS Student-developed Hybrid Rocket