Posted on October 23, 2025 by Sean M. Wood
Mechanical engineering major, Grace Zimmer, working on a component of the rocket.
League of Legends, the online game where the League of Liquids senior design team took its name has no “final boss” to defeat to win the game.
But in collegiate rocketry the final boss could be building a bi-propellant liquid-fueled rocket. It requires a deeper understanding of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and control systems on top of aerodynamics and mechanical engineering. That’s the challenge before senior mechanical engineering majors Grace Zimmer, Haven Russell, Emilio Mayorga and Tanner Ford.
The group are scheduled to launch their rocket, Jinx, powered by the liquid-fueled engine, Miss Fortune, in California’s Mojave Desert on Nov. 9. They have already had two successful tests of the engine to ensure it is generating enough thrust to take the rocket into the air. They expect to test the engine and rocket together with one more successful test of the engine.
“Right from the beginning, we said as a team we wanted three hot fires of the engine that went mostly well before we committed to integration to the flight vehicle,” Russell said.
The students are after much more than a grade for their final project. They are developing the skills that will hopefully land them jobs in the space industry when they graduate in December. But this project is intended to extend beyond this semester.
Their adviser, Associate Professor Dr. Daniel Pineda, said he tasked students with coming up with an accessible design that can be relatively easily accomplished by college students in a typical campus machine shop.
“It’s just enough complexity to give them a level of experience that industry desires and look for in future employees but just enough in scope for students to build and test,” Pineda said. “But if it doesn’t work, the tests are not that expensive. It’s striking a balance with design and employers can see they have what it takes to design systems that go on their rockets and for their satellites.”
Russell had just returned from a job interview with Relativity Space in Long Beach, Calif. where team members told him nearly everyone had experience working on college rocket projects. “As Dr. P. said, having that experience is genuinely something they are looking for,” Russell said.
The work is being fully funded by Pineda who jokingly called it “Dr. Pineda’s Scholarship for Wayward Rocket Students.”
“It’s an investment,” he said. “I’m the adviser for the rocket club and these students have been active participants in the club for years. I consider this like a seed grand and once we build up momentum and get the word out there that we’re doing this at UT San Antonio we’ll get more corporate sponsorships that can support this long term.”
So many teams purchase their rockets and engines that use solid propellant to save cost. UT San Antonio has had teams do this before. League of Liquids is making their components in the Klesse Makerspace, in part to make history, according to Zimmer.
“We want to be the first university group in Texas to launch a liquid propellant rocket that’s student-built,” Zimmer said.
Other Texas schools have built liquid-fueled engines and had successful test-fires, according to Pineda, but he’s not aware of any university-affiliated projects that have had successful launches. He said some groups have launched hybrid rockets with liquid oxidizers and solid fuel.
“That’s not quite what we’re doing,” Pineda said. “The bi-propellant liquid is most related to what’s used in launch vehicles in the industry. So, we’d like to be the first group in Texas. But I don’t think a lot of people know that we’re doing this. We’re kind of like the dark horse.”
— Sean M. Wood
