Project Odyssey

Project Odyssey is ARES’ rocketry’s current engineering project. It will be the team’s first rocket launched on an entirely student-designed and build hybrid rocket motor, a departure from our previously commercially purchased solid rocket motors. As lead systems engineer for Odyssey I supervise, document, and advise the development of the project, to ensure the team delivers a robust and well-designed rocket.

ARES is a team of over 120 engineering, working on diverse aspects of rocket design from propulsion systems to recovery mechanisms. When I began as lead systems engineer there were no systems engineering frameworks in place at all in the team - a common hallmark of university student engineering groups. My goal in the position was not only to perform the functions of a systems engineering and technical lead, but to implement frameworks and construct a systems engineering culture within the team to cultivate the engineering rigour needed from the team to continue to tackle larger and more complex projects. Early on in the project I put into place:

• System requirements - I created a detailed requirements tracking system to capture all project requirements, from system to component level. All requirements have a dedicated V&V entry that allows easy tracking of requirement progress and verification and validation methods. For Odyssey I identified and categorised a total of 174 requirements.
• Failure mode analysis - I implemented a process through which teams can easily identify and control failure modes across the whole system, to allow for identification of risk all the way from concept design to implementation. I have identified and given recommendations on 184 failure modes, with more analysis still to be done.
• Interface Control Documents - As with all complex aerospace projects, interfacing between subsystems is always a headache. To control the integration issues the team has frequently dealt with in previous projects I brought in ICDs to specify and document interfacing, to identify integration issues early on and provide single-source-of-truth information to all teams working at system boundaries.
• Testing regimes - to enforce proper requirement V&V, I implemented regimented testing regime planning, derived from the subsystem requirements. All components needing analysis or testing are classified and a corresponding report is created. These items are tracked in a central repository so all members can see outstanding testing needing to be completed, and can access dedicated reports to document their results in.
• Documentation frameworks - to increase the ease of technical documentation I created a framework to facilitate the process, which is typically a hinderance for young engineers who can think of nothing worse than writing detailed technical documentation. I created detailed templates to guide people through the documentation process, from identifying driving requirements and failure modes to documenting their design process to identifying necessary testing and analysis. This process will accelerate the production of the team’s broader technical reports, leaving more time to do proper engineering.

Apart from these key contributions I spend much of my time creating different templates for all sorts of applications, using my experience designing competition rockets to guide the technical development of the project, and assisting in team organisation and fostering a greater team culture through responsibilities as one of the leads of the broader team.

Odyssey is a very exciting rocket. Standing 3.73 m tall and weighing nearly 50 kg, Odessey far larger than any previous ARES rocket (although not as tall as Deimos). Propelling the structures is ARES’ Genesis engine, a 5 kN parrafin/N2O hybrid, entirely designed by the team. Genesis has been sent out for manufacturing, and the team will be targeting its first static fire of the engine in June 2026. ARES successfully testing a 500 N subscale engine in 2025, and will be targeting a few more smaller launches to build up team processes and safety procedures. Before my systems engineering role I helped build the data acquisition cabinet for the team. The rocket features a large number of novel and student-designed systems, including updated air brakes, a novel side-hatch recovery system, a fully custom avionics suite including an ARES-designed robust transfer protocol, a scientific payload investigating muons in Earth’s atmosphere, and retractable rail guides.

Odyssey will be launched for the first time at the 2026 Australian Universities Rocket Competition, in the 10,000 ft SRAD category. This will serve not only as a great chance to compete and show off the engineering that has gone into the project, but also to test our system and see the rocket fly. In the latter half of 2026 and the start of 2027 Odyssey will undergo a design revision, before entering in the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) in 2027. The team has made amazing progress getting the project to the point its currently at; I’m very excited to see our hot fires and eventual launch of the project later this year. It’s a priviledge to be able to contribute to the leadership of the team for a second time (after the success of Florence), and see the progress that is being made with ARES’ engineering practices. I’ll be updating this page with more images of the rocket as we dig into manufacturing.