What is Emergence?
Development of the Emergence Series began in 2020 with one goal: launch the Akronauts into space! The Karman Line (100km/330,000ft ASL), is universally accepted as the edge of space – and breaking through it is the pinnacle achievement in amateur and collegiate rocketry.
What makes the Akronauts different from other collegiate rocketry teams? We’re doing it entirely ourselves! Emergence will be the first and only 100% student-researched-and-designed (SRAD) rocket to reach space. To achieve this, innovation, creative design, and extensive research are paramount. Over the years, the Emergence program has steadily moved away from commercial components, embracing breakthroughs in our SRAD technology as they emerge such as our own proprietary propellants, aerostructure modularity, student-designed wound body tubes and nosecones, student-designed and sewn parachutes, SRAD flight computers, and many more. Each advancement brings us closer to our ultimate goal: not just to reach space, but to redefine what a student built rocket can achieve.
Emergence VI
The design for Emergence VI is underway! Projected to be even more powerful than Emergence V and fly to heights over 100,000ft, Emergence VI will be launched in March 2026.
Emergence V
Emergence V returned back to the program’s roots; high powered single-stage rockets. Featuring the Akronauts second fully SRAD propellant, “Wayside White”, Emergence V’s motor, over ten feet tall and nearly 90,000 Ns of impulse, is the second-most powerful collegiate rocket motor by thrust in the entire world! The rocket incorporates a minimum-diameter philosophy aerostructure, scales 16ft tall and just over 200ft fully loaded. In March 2025, with a successful ignition and takeoff, Emergence V roared off the launchpad, accelerating to Mach 3+ in just 4.5 seconds. At this point, an unknown aerostructure failure doomed the recovery of the rocket, sending it spiraling into the Mojave Desert wilderness where it sits to date.
Although recovery wasn’t successful, Wayside White proved to be a successful propellant, and will be used in the upcoming launch of Emergence VI in March 2026.
Emergence IV
Emergence IV continued the progression of the Akronauts strong solid propulsion technology. The rocket scaled approximately 20 feet tall, just under 300 pounds loaded, and incorporated a new weight-optimized aluminum module for a 6″ to 6″ transition. This two-stage rocket had a fully SRAD 6” P-motor booster with a 6” O-motor sustainer both flying Angry Listerine. Like Emergence III, the rocket incorporated our head end ignition technology as well as SRAD flight computers for data acquisition. Emergence IV launched in May of 2024 and reached a height of ~55,000 feet. Unfortunately, Emergence IV was the first rocket of the Emergence series to not have a successful recovery. Emergence IV the lessons learned paved the way for the Akronauts’ future ambitions.
Emergence III
The time between launching Emergence II and Emergence III was extremely minimal. The development time period for this rocket was less than 6 months and it was the most powerful rocket we had developed at this point. The first two-stage rocket in the Emergence series made use of our heavily tested 6″ O-class SRAD motor for the booster and our smaller N-class 4″ SRAD motor for the sustainer. Both of these motors were integrated to the rocket using a minimum diameter design philosophy, so there was no room to integrate a typical e-match igniter. To combat this, we developed a our own head-end ignition system, allowing us to ignite our sustainer motor from the forward closure and utilize two completely separate avionics bays between the sustainer and booster section of the rocket.
In December 2022, just eight short months after the successful launch of Emergence II, Emergence III flew to an apogee of 38,149ft at Friends of Amateur Rocketry in the Mojave Desert, CA. Both stages were successfully recovered.
Emergence II
The second rocket in the Emergence series of rockets was our first foray into 6″ SRAD motors and many other technologies. We again used our Angry Listerine propellant but with some new chemical substitutions for some modifiers. This rocket was also the first rocket to use our brand-new modularity aerostructure technology! This allowed us to quickly assemble and disassemble our rocket since it was built in sections. Emergence II also showed off our aluminum fin can, designed to be easily assembled and modifiable for use on other rockets. Emergence II launched in the Mojave Desert in California at Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR) in March of 2022. It successfully reached 21,964ft and was fully recovered.
This Trip was a major milestone for the team and a lot of fun! We were featured on the yearly amateur rocketry calendar for our signature blue burning “Angry Listerine” propellant and we even got to tour SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA because of our innovations! You can watch a documentary of the trip on our YouTube channel or click below to see what you can expect working with the Akronauts!
Emergence I
The “not-so-humble” beginnings of the Emergence series, came from a team of dreamers determined to compete with the greatest collegiate rocketry teams in the world. Armed with nothing but their engineering knowledge and a drastically reduced budget (thanks, Covid-19), the team laid the foundation for our solid propulsion success, fully characterizing our first SRAD propellant formulation, “Angry Listerine” in a 98mm motor. On a cold morning in January 2021, Angry Listerine’s bright-blue burn rocketed Emergence I to an apogee of 13,794ft recorded by RTS.
