03/03/2026
We are proud to announce the successful static fire of Sisyphus, a flight ready 7kN regeneratively cooled ethanol/nitrous oxide engine developed as a capstone project by Joe, Joel, Matthew, Stefan and Xavier. The engine features a copper 3d printed combustion chamber, a rapidly replaceable ignitor, custom valves, and a coaxial propellant tank. Sisyphus is designed to achieve multiple engine firings or rocket launches within a single day. Additionally, as part of this project, the team redesigned and built new electrical and fluids ground support equipment to support Waterloo Rocketry's projects.
This initial test was designed to be conservative, operating the engine below nominal conditions and limiting burn time to test the regenerative cooling while limiting risk if something did go wrong. While we did not get all the data we wanted and saw some melting on the injector face, the printed combustion chamber performed perfectly, validating the reusable design. This test provided significant learnings which will benefit future hotfires of the Sisyphus engine and other Waterloo Rocketry projects. A report will be published in the coming months with more details and the team will be conducting more static fires of Sisyphus this spring.
We would like to thank Stein Industries, the sponsor for this project, for their incredible support, along with Dr. Andrew Milne for his support as the faculty advisor.
Lastly, we would like to thank the Sedra Student Design Center and the University of Waterloo Engineering Student Machine Shop for their support.
