POSTECH
Projects
PSLVAircraft

PSLV

POSTECH Science Launch Vehicle

A sounding rocket programme built by POSTECH students.

We bring the airframe, flight electronics and recovery hardware together, then test the work on the ground and in flight.

The complete PSI rocket on its launch support
PSLV at the launch field.

Systems engineering

The PSI rocket’s carbon-fibre body beside the launch rail
The rocket body and launch rail.

Avionics

The flight computer brings sensor measurements, motion estimates and recovery decisions together. Onboard logs and a radio link let the team follow the flight and review it afterwards.

Avionics on GitHub
Flight computer
The dual-core Portenta H7 separates flight computation from storage and radio. The M7 reads sensors, estimates motion and evaluates flight state and recovery commands. The M4 writes microSD logs and sends telemetry through XBee.
Sensing and estimation
An IMU measures attitude and acceleration; a BMP390 measures pressure. A vertical unscented Kalman filter (UKF) combines acceleration and barometric altitude to estimate motion. GNSS position is logged separately and does not feed this vertical filter.
Ground station and logs
Received telemetry drives the attitude view, flight-state display and altitude plots. Saved logs can be replayed for review. The ground record contains only received samples, so radio gaps can leave it different from the log stored onboard.

Flight reconstruction

Explore 343 received samples across 29.38 seconds. Play the record or seek through it to inspect estimated altitude, vertical velocity and flight state.

Archived telemetry excerpt · flight date and vehicle unconfirmed.

Elapsed0.00 s
Estimated altitude1.305 m
Vertical velocity0.463 m/s
Source statePRELAUNCH
Received altitude estimates over elapsed timeThe altitude estimate rises to 186.632 metres. Seven gaps interrupt the received record. It ends in DEPLOY at 45.841 metres, not at landing. 050100150200 051015202529.38 Altitude estimate (m)Elapsed time (s)
Breaks and shaded bands mark seven gaps in the source record. The cursor holds the last received sample until the next one arrives.

Static recorded trace and summary.

Read the excerpt summary and limits
Selected received samples
Samplesmm/sState
First0.001.3050.463PRELAUNCH
Received maximum11.44186.6323.579LAUNCH
Final29.3845.841-6.764DEPLOY

Time is relative to the excerpt start, not liftoff. This is a recorded excerpt, not a live feed, and it is not synchronized with the launch films.

186.632 m is the maximum received altitude estimate in this excerpt, not a vehicle specification. The final state is DEPLOY; landing and completed recovery are not established by this record.

Combustion tests

Measured thrust, pressure and test conditions for each trial.

TMS on GitHub

Key results

DatePeak thrustTotal impulseBurn durationPeak pressure
2026-07-16323.79 N484.66 N s2331.2 ms38.018 bar
2026-05-28174.19 N366.33 N s2818.7 ms42.496 bar
2026-04-08203.00 N387.07 N s2687.5 ms44.304 bar
2026-04-03174.42 N368.74 N s3287.5 ms39.241 bar

Flights

Launch and onboard footage from the PSI archive.

Flight record

PSLV-I

The first launch

PSLV-I

Launch successful; recovery failed

PSLV-II

A recovery mission completed

Full flight records

Aircraft

Quadrotor & VTOL

Aircraft designed and built for student competitions.

Our aircraft work brings vehicle design and fabrication together with research into flight control and stability.

Explore the research
Conceptual diagram · Quadrotor configuration
Not a measured result or a drawing of the built vehicle.

Related research

Precision landing

The current precision-landing study combines conventional control with learned residual corrections. It remains a simulation feasibility study, with physical flight validation ahead.