{"id":729,"date":"2025-02-25T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/texasrocketlab.ae.utexas.edu\/?page_id=729"},"modified":"2026-04-20T21:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T21:42:18","slug":"neptune3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/texasrocketlab.ae.utexas.edu\/?p=729","title":{"rendered":"Neptune"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/span>
\n

Neptune<\/h1>\n\n

Our next step to collegiate orbit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>

Mission Objective<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Become the first<\/strong> collegiate liquid bi-propellant rocket to reach the<\/strong> K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line<\/strong> (100 km).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/span>
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Neptune is an electric pump-fed engine active
pressurization (bang-bang) configuration vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n

Features (Engineered In-House<\/em>):<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Electric Pumps

TVC Electric Actuators

Attitude Control System<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Actuated Canards

Flight and Ground Software

Parallelized Avionics System<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n

Team Neptune<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\n

Spring 2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Leadership 2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Subteams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
Test and Launch Operations<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

Test and Launch focuses on the development and operation of the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) and all other infrastructure that validate Neptune’s mission from prior to integration to launch. The Test and Launch department consists of three test stands – The Engine Test Stand (located at Briggs TX) used to hotfire our engine, and validate the Engine Team’s designs. The Vehicle Test Stand used to static fire and launch our vehicle, and various smaller test stands located at our pickle research campus used to validate all the components that will eventually fly on Neptune.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Integration and Ground Structures<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

Integration and Ground Structures owns all of the ground support structures for our vehicles, including the strongback, launch mount, and other lift and static fire hardware. They also own the vehicle CAD and the vehicle integration onto these structures. The Integration and Ground Structures team is now working to improve our lift process and make the lift hardware robust.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Stage Propulsion<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

Stage Propulsion owns all the vehicle fluid systems, including the propellant sensing, liquid oxygen press, RP press, igniter, fill, and engine feedline systems. They own the inter tanks that house these assemblies and the inter tank routing. The Stage team is working to develop an on-vehicle press system, mass saving in the inter tanks, and making our in-house main valves<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Engine<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

The Engine team owns the engine system and engine assemblies, which includes the chamber, igniter, injector and nozzle. The engine team is now working to create an in-house manufactured ablative nozzle, as well as an in-house designed and tested electric pump for Neptune.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Mechanisms<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

The Mechanisms team owns all mechanical systems on the vehicle, including the Thrust Vector Control, Actuated Canards, Static Fins, and Recovery systems. They are working on developing our new canards system for use on Halcyon. Mechanisms is also working on making in-house electric actuators for Neptune in addition to further TVC redesigns, as well as simplifying recovery and improving vehicle control authority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Structures<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

The Structures team owns the vehicle structure, including the COPVs, airframe, bonded joints, coupler, nosecone, and raceways. They also own the manufacturing of all of these structures, as well as the ablative nozzle. The Structures team is working on developing a test for our COPV bonded joints, beginning the manufacture of the Neptune vehicle structure, as well as beginning work on a metallic airframe and tank architecture.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Ground Station Software<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

The Software team owns all software, including our in-house flight software and in-house ground software. They are working on completely overhauling our ground software stack, as well as updates to our flight software for the new control systems and GPS logic.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Avionics<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n

The Avionics team owns all electronics on the vehicle, including the in-house flight computers, the GPS and antennas, the RF system, the harnessing, and the inter tank avionics. They are working on developing new TVC Driver PCBs, as well as increasing reliability for Neptune.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

Guidance, Navigation, & Control<\/summary>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

The GNC team owns the simulation of the vehicle for vehicle trajectory and dispersions. They develop this 6-DOF simulation, as well as controllers for the TVC and Canards systems. The GNC team is working to implement new controllers and make new dispersions\/trajectories for our new launch site, as well as creating a fully in-house simulation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mission Objective Become the first collegiate liquid bi-propellant rocket to reach the K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line (100 km). Team Neptune Spring 2026 Leadership 2026 Subteams<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-transparent-header":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"TREL Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/texasrocketlab.ae.utexas.edu\/?author=2"},"yoast_head":"\nNeptune - Texas Rocket Engineering Lab | The University of Texas at Austin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/texasrocketlab.ae.utexas.edu\/?p=729\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Neptune - Texas Rocket Engineering Lab | The University of Texas at Austin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mission Objective Become the first collegiate liquid bi-propellant rocket to reach the K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line (100 km). 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