Launch Canada Challenge 2025
All You Need To Know About the Upcoming Event
Launch Canada 2025 Takes Off In
Conference: August 16 & 17
Launch Window: August 18-22
Closing Ceremony: August 22
Start Archie Dillon Sportsplex
Conference
Archie Dillon Sportsplex will host the kickoff to the event, where rocketeers, STEM innovators, sponsors, and the public are invited to explore exciting projects and learn from incredible speakers.
Speakers List to Date:
Zak Harrison (RDX) = Responsive Launch
Scott Manley - Live Audience Q&A!
Ninad Joshi (Pratt & Whitney) - Industry Insights
MDA - Industry Insights
Ariyanna Kresnyak (Launch Canada) - Rotating Detonation Engines
Also University Teams presenting relevant project features.
Launch Window
Teams and spectators will then head to the Launch Canada site, where teams will be organized by project and assigned to designated staging areas for their rockets or technology demonstrations.
Closing Ceremony
Following the conclusion of Launch Week, teams will gather for the official Closing Ceremony, where the winners in each challenge category will be announced. The evening will also include a celebratory dinner and inspiring speeches from industry leaders and valued supporters.
Official TEam Roster as of august 1, 2025
| Notes | |
|---|---|
| A = | Advanced Launch |
| B = | Basic Launch |
| T = | Technology Development |
Team and Project Details
1A Ontario Tech Space and Rocketry
Project: ADVANCED
The OT Mk III is to utilize advanced radiation detection transducers for beta and gamma spectroscopy, plotting energy over counts. OT Mk III is a 16’, 2-stage rocket aiming for 41, 000 ft.
1B Ontario Tech Space and Rocketry
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
Developing a flight controller, formerly named the Advanced Control Unit (ACU), capable of running sophisticated control systems. The ACU will feature an integrated sensor and telemetry suite with a versatile ground station interface, facilitating seamless integration into various control applications.
2 Sirius Zenith
Project: ADVANCED
To build and launch their first liquid fueled rocket with a target apogee of 30,000 feet.
3 Mach - TMU’s Liquid Rocketry Team
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT - Sprint (Small Scale Prototyping for Rapid Iteration and Testing)
SPRINT is a modular, rapidly iterative bipropellant liquid‐rocket engine fueled by ethanol and nitrous oxide. SPRINT’s architecture enables quick configuration changes and active thrust variation. In a live static‐fire demonstration, MACH will validate engine performance, safety systems, and the ability to throttle thrust, laying the groundwork for future flight‐weight propulsion systems.
4 University of Victoria Rocketry Team
Project: BASIC Andruil - 2
Anduril-2 is designed to fly to 31,000ft at Mach 1.9, and to feature several experimental systems and novel design elements. Chief among these are a fully-Aluminum fuselage, an additive manufactured Aluminum boattail and fin can, a deployable CubeSat payload, an SRAD telemetry system and flight computer, and an SRAD onboard camera system.
7 Student Team for Alberta Rocketry Research
Project: BASIC - STARR and RINGO IIIB
Ringo IIIB will be STARR’s sixth sounding rocket launch. Development of Ringo IIIB fundamentally began in March 2023 with Ringo III, and ended in July 2025. The final conceptualization of Ringo IIIB was made after IREC 2025 as new goals were defined by the club from Ringo IV’s shortcomings. Powered by a Cesaroni 20146N5800-P COTS solid motor, we seek to exceed an altitude of 25,000 ft for the first time in club history. The rocket’s major subsystems include the recovery system, aerostructure, avionics, payload, and ground station. Key features of these subsystems include an aerostructure made through in-house composites work, an SRAD ground station and telemetry software to track the launch vehicle, and a payload which will be deployed along with the drogue chute at apogee. This year’s payload seeks to verify a new compact prototype sampling mechanism to collect microbes in the atmosphere, and grid fins to control the roll of the payload during descent under its own parachutes.
8 NLC Rocketry Norstead
Project: BASIC
Therocket utilizes a four- grain Cesaroni Pro 75 motor and is composed of several major subsystems, including the nosecone, telemetry bay, and engine section.
9A University of Ottawa Rocketry
Project: BASIC- The Apogee-Gee
uORocketry aims to fly Apogee-Gee, a minimum diameter rocket at Launch Canada 2025. This is the rocket that was flown at Launch Canada 2024 as well. Apogee-Gee aims once again to fly to an altitude of 13,950 m. The team is building off the experience obtained at Launch Canada 2024, where uORocketry placed 9th of 14 in the Basic launch category. The team’s goal is to break the Canadian altitude record for amateur high-powered rocketry,
9B University of Ottawa Rocketry
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT - October Skies
uORocketry aims to fly a tech demonstration in the form of a small-scale instrumented rocket named October Skies at Launch Canada 2025. The goal for October Skies is to test the new sensor suite that collects data during flight which will then be implemented in the team’s Launch Canada 2026 rocket. October Skies will be using cardboard COTS body tubes, and the fins are made from sheets of stainless steel. October Skies will be equipped with a single parachute. The motor will be a G80-7t and the total length of the rocket, from the tip of the nose cone to the bottom of the tail cone, is 1.18m.
11 Oronos Polytechnique Montreal
Project: ADVANCED - Philomenos & Ploutos
Oronos Polytechnique, representing Polytechnique Montreal, is entering the advanced category of the Launch Canada Challenge 2025 with its 75k two stage rocket, Philomenos & Ploutos. The project which began in the summer of 2023 primarily aims to analyze the impact of a rocket flight on the lumbar spine. Philomenos & Ploutos, standing at 198 inches tall and respectively 7.1 and 5.7 inches wide, is the conclusion of a two-year project towards developing the first generation of Oronos’ two stage rockets.
12 Collingwood Rocketry Club
Project: BASIC
A standard High Power rocket project using a Cesaroni Pro75 M2075.
13A ROCKÉTS FUSÉES HAUTE PUISSANCE
Project: ADVANCED - Ataksak
For the 2025 Launch Canada competition, RockÉTS decided to launch its first hybrid rocket, Ataksak—the culmination of six years of iterative development toward a fully SRAD rocket. This project represents a major milestone for the team, as it includes an entirely student-designed hybrid motor, avionics, and ground support systems, including a custom launch rail and fueling arm.
13B ROCKÉTS FUSÉES HAUTE PUISSANCE
Project: BASIC - Arrow
Arrow is a project developed by RockÉTS for the International Rocket Engineering Competition of 2024 and improved for the 2025 Launch Canada Challenge. This rocket aims to achieve a high-altitude flight using a fully SRAD rocket design—excluding avionics—in pursuit of the N-class motor altitude record. Initially designed around a Cesaroni O3400 motor, the rocket had to be reconfigured due to supply shortages, leading to the use of the less powerful N2900 motor. This change notably impacted the mission's altitude objective, reducing the expected apogee from 22 860 m (75 000 ft) to 16 154 m (56 000 ft).
13C ROCKÉTS FUSÉES HAUTE PUISSANCE
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT - WhoWho
The main objective of the technical demonstration project is to design an image recognition camera system for the RockÉTS club to capture images and video in real time during the club's rocket launches. A potential market viable rocket filming service will also be developed as partof this project. The design team was composed of three disciplines: mechanical, electrical, and software.
14 Carleton University InSpace (CU InSpace)
Project: ADVANCED - Quarter Pounder
CU InSpace, Carleton University’s Rocket Engineering Design Team, is participating in the Advanced Launch Competition of the 2025 Launch Canada Challenge. The target altitude is set to 30,000 ft. The main engineering goals of the rocket for this year are to further improve the reliability in the vehicle’s wireless reefed recovery system and demonstrate our student-designed hybrid rocket engine in flight for the first time.
15 Dalhousie Rocketry Team
Project: BASIC- Bluenose
The Bluenose Mark II rocket features a 2.6-meter fibreglass airframe, COTS M-class Pro75 5-grain motor, and a projected apogee of 2700 meters.
16 Space Concordia Solid Rocketry
Project: BASIC- Aether
The goal is to reach an apogee of 30,000 using a COTS O3400 motor.
17 University of Manitoba Space Applications and Technology Society (UMSATS)
Project: BASIC- Winnie 5.0
The Winnie 5.0 rocket will launch a payload consisting of a 3U (10x10x30cm) blood and muscle phantom experiment to an apogee of approximately 10,000 feet (3048 m).
18A Queen Rocket Engineering Team (QRET)
Project: BASIC- Honey
HONEY is launching with a COTS CTI N2500 Pro98 6G solid motor to a predicted apogee of 3,600 m (12,000 ft). The launch vehicle will be 3.58 m (11 ft 9 in) tall and 152.4 mm (6 in) inner diameter.
18B Queen Rocket Engineering Team (QRET)
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT - Persistence II
The Queen’s Rocket Engineering Team’s hybrid rocket engine, Persistence II, is in development for the 2025 Launch Canada technology development challenge, aiming to advance the team's propulsion capabilities and lay the groundwork for future hybrid-powered flight. The engine design uses nitrous oxide and ABS plastic as the oxidizer and fuel for combustion, and features an oxidizer tank, a high-pressure plumbing panel, thrust chamber, and extensive mechanical and electrical ground support systems.
19A UBC Rocket
Project: BASIC- Sunburst
Sunburst is UBC Rocket’s basic launch entry into the 2025 Launch Canada competition. It is propelled with a solid CTI N1975 motor and has an estimated apogee of around 15,000 ft. The airframe stands 274 cm tall with a 6 inch diameter.
19B UBC Rocket
Project: TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT - Thrust Vectoring
It is a single-stage rocket propelled by a COTS F-15 solid motor with an SRAD gimballing control system, achieving a predicted apogee of approximately 15 meters. The airframe stands 60 cm tall with a cardboard tube body reinforced by 3D printed PLA+ components. A servo-actuated parachute deployment system ejects a 24" diameter parachute at T+4.5 seconds. The rocket features a custom gimbal system controlled by two MG90S servo motors through a pushrod linkage, enabling thrust vectoring for flight stabilization.
20 McMaster Rocketry Team
Project: BASIC - Nimbus
The Nimbus is a standard high power rocket planning to use a COTS CTI N1800 motor to reach an apogee of 17,000 feet.
21 Aerial Robotics and Rocketry Club (UBCO Aerospace)
Project: ADVANCED - Hydra Mini
UBCO Aerospace has built a Clustered Hybrid rocket consisting of four COTS hybrid rocket motors and a composite fuselage. Our primary goal is to ignite all four rocket engines, have consistent burn times across the board, have the rocket ascend to an altitude of approximately 14,000 AGL, deploy its drogue and return to earth under its main, which will deploy at 750ft. The basic configuration consists of a main M-1491 Contrail 76mm 3200cc N2O/rubber hybrid motor running in a 6-inch Fibre-Glass fuselage, with 3x J-642 54mm 910cc each N2O/rubber hybrid motors running in exterior pods.
22 Arabalest Rocketry
Project: ADVANCED - Goose 4.1
This team is returning with another iteration of their Goose design for 2025 which will be a two stage rocket.
23 University of Windsor Rocketry Team (UWRT)
Project: BASIC- LanceAir
As a first time participant in Launch Canada (though IREC veterans), UWRT is launching a standard high power rocket to 10,000 feet using a (CTI) M1450P motor.
24 Waterloo Rocketry
Project: ADVANCED- Aurora
The Aurora is an advanced rocket project using an SRAD motor targeting an apogee of 50,000 feet.
25 GAUL (Groupe Aérospatial de l'Université Laval)
Project: BASIC - Pagoma
GAUL will be launching a 4-inch diameter rocket with a solid propellant with an intended altitude of around 15 000 ft.
28A University of Saskatchewan Space Design Team (USST)
Project: BASIC - UP
A standard high powered rocket project using a COTS motor to reach and apogee of 13000 feet.
30 Turner Fenton Rocketry Association (TFRA)
Project: BASIC - The Spectre
Spectre is a 102-inch, fibreglass rocket powered by a Cesaroni 4895L1395-P L1395 75mm solid rocket motor, targeting an apogee of approximately 3220 meters.
32 McGill Rocket Team (MRT)
Project: ADVANCED - Thorondor Mk.II
This is an advanced SRAD project targeting a 15,000 foot apogee. The team will return to Launch Canada for the third year in a row, and LC 2025 marks the second year in a row that the MRTis committed to Canadian only competitions. Previous competition experiences include a misfire at LC 2024 where the team was awarded the spirit award, a partially nominal advanced launch at LC 2023 to roughly 7500 ft. to achieve a second place result in the advanced category, and a meteorologically induced grounding at SAC 2023. The team aims to participate in as many outreach events as possible, and often MRT tables or participates in Promoting Opportunities for Women in Engineering (POWE) events.