Q-AISES Rocket Team

We are Canada’s first Indigenous rocket design team, competing annually in the NASA First Nations Launch competition. In 2023, we placed first overall and were named International Champions! Our prize package included a VIP trip to Kennedy Space Center, where we were present for the launch of Crew-7 to the International Space Station aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket.

We look forward to another exciting year of rocketry design. This year our team has 16 members, all of them Indigenous students from engineering and science programs at Queen’s University. We will be travelling in late April 2024 to compete in both the Mars Engineering Challenge and Moon Challenge divisions of First Nations Launch. Our teams will design, test, and fabricate a rocket that will air deploy a drone (Mars) or a lander (Moon) with a fabricated retractable payload chassis at apogee. The drone payload must descend under parachute until it reaches 400’ AGL, wherein the drone parachute will release and a TRUST-certified drone pilot will pilot the drone to a predetermined landing zone.

Find out more about our 2023-24 team!

Thank you to all who made our participation in First Nations Launch 2023 possible, it was truly an experience that will last a lifetime. See our Past Teams page for details!