Who are we and what are we doing?

We are a student-run association from Bremen. Our goal is to enable students to gain practical experience during their studies in an environment where they can try things out and learn at a low threshold. As part of this goal, we are currently working on "Project Karman". For this project we are developing sounding rockets and other aerospace technologies.

Why are we doing this?

Our primary goal is to enable students to gain practical experience alongside their studies. Our focus is on students in STEM fields such as computer science, space engineering, mechanical engineering and others. However, our team is not just made up of technicians. With more than ten different study courses, we are able to cover a wide range of different subject areas, for example electronic technicians, chemists, physicists and mathematicians. Depending on the department, we even have lawyers, business graduates and psychologists that support us at ASTRA e.V.. This allows us to network across disciplines, learn from and with each other and most importantly look beyond our own horizon and capabilities. We are convinced that it is precisely the diversity of our association that enables us to engage students in our vision and that we can learn, have fun and build rockets together. 

We have also set ourselves the goal of creating an interdisciplinary and international network of students, bringing different study programmes and knowledge backgrounds into contact with each other, therefore bringing them together through their enthusiasm for aerospace. We spread this enthusiasm and fascination internally, but also externally with everyone that interacts with us. At events we attend or host ourselves, we represent Bremen and ourselves as an innovative, curious place that wants to advance aerospace in and around Bremen. We are always happy to explain details about the design, construction and testing of rockets - after all, we are all here to learn something new.

What are we currently working on?

We are currently working on two projects, our long-term project Karman and our short-term project Phoenix. With Project Karman, we aim to develop a rocket that reaches the Kármán line which lies 100 km above sea level. Of course, this is an ambitious goal to even consider. So before a rocket can be launched, it has to be designed, manufactured and tested. For that a subscale version of such a rocket is most sensical to develop. Such that we can test the different subsystems, integrate them in the most professional way and gather data with experimental tests.

For that we developed our rocket Phoenix. It is a smaller version designed to reach an altitude of 9km. This approach allows us to finalize rockets in a shorter time. Also, due to the shorter time period, students have the chance to experience the process of designing, building, testing and launching during their time at ASTRA. 

Our project and its milestones can be found on the "About Us" page.