Discover how the student team White Noise NTUA from the National Technical University of Athens designed and built Aurora for the European Rocketry Challenge 2026.
The project features custom autonomous flight electronics, telemetry, active airbrakes, and a specialized machine learning payload for analyzing airborne microparticles.
The team presented Aurora, a solid-propellant research rocket about three meters tall, designed to reach an altitude of 3.000 meters. The team members independently developed the flight electronics and telemetry systems, as well as an active aerodynamic brake system for precise control of maximum altitude.
One of the most distinctive elements of the rocket's design is its innovative recovery system, which features four movable carbon fiber covers. These covers open at the highest point of the flight, allowing the parachutes to deploy smoothly. In addition, the rocket carried a specialized research payload aimed at studying suspended atmospheric microparticles and detecting microplastics.
To implement the experiment, the students combined environmental sensors with digital holographic microscopy technology and machine learning algorithms, allowing for the visual recording, identification and classification of particles in flight. The team's overall effort was honored with the "Rookie of the Year" awards for the best debut mission and the "Payload Award" for the scientific experiment.
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"White Noise NTUA", founded in 2017 by undergraduate students of various specialties, relied on the valuable support of the School of Mechanical Engineering of the NTUA and the Machine Elements Laboratory, under the direction of Professor Vasilios Spitas.
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