---
title: "ETH Zurich students fire 3D printed copper detonation rocket engine"
url: https://www.voxelmatters.com/eth-zurich-students-fire-3d-printed-copper-detonation-rocket-engine/
date: 2026-05-28
modified: 2026-05-28
lang: en
author: "Joseph Caron-Dawe"
description: "Students from the Aris Swiss student space initiative at ETH Zurich have produced stable detonation waves during ground testing of a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), whose combustion chamber and..."
categories:
  - "AM for Space"
  - "AM Research"
  - "Metal Additive Manufacturing"
tags:
  - "future"
image: https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-02-640x427.jpg
word_count: 356
---

# ETH Zurich students fire 3D printed copper detonation rocket engine

[Students from the Aris Swiss student space initiative at ETH Zurich](https://www.voxelmatters.com/eth-zurich-rapture-project-developing-multi-material-lpbf-for-rockets/) have produced stable detonation waves during ground testing of a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), whose combustion chamber and injector were fabricated using metal 3D printing. The firing, conducted at Dübendorf airfield by the 20-strong Pegasus team, generated three confirmed detonation waves on its second ignition attempt.

![ETH Zurich students fire 3D printed copper rotating detonation rocket engine](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-01-340x227.jpg)

The hexagonal combustion chamber, roughly the size of a dinner plate, was [printed in copper](https://www.voxelmatters.com/aconity3d-3d-prints-ai-designed-copper-aerospike-rocket-engine/), alongside iterative injector prototypes. Pegasus said the successful firing of Aris made it the first student team in the world to ignite a liquid-fuelled RDRE, with such engines having only been tested in around a dozen countries.

## Metal AM enabled rapid iteration on the injector

The injector was developed by Mattia Röösli, a third-year mechanical engineering student, as part of ETH Zurich's Focus Project curriculum. Metal 3D printing allowed the team to move from sketches and calculations to physical hardware quickly.

“The first thing you do is make sketches and discuss them as a team. The others then draw your attention to things you have not yet considered. Then you continue calculating and sketching. You break big problems down into smaller ones until they become solvable,” Röösli stated.

“When the first prototypes are on the table, new challenges become apparent again.”

[![ETH Zurich students fire 3D printed copper rotating detonation rocket engine](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-03-640x427.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-03.jpg)

[![ETH Zurich students fire 3D printed copper rotating detonation rocket engine](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-04-640x427.jpg)](https://www.voxelmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ETH-Zurich-04.jpg)

## Performance targets and material challenges

RDREs are projected to deliver 10–20% more power than conventional combustion engines using the same quantity of fuel, with detonation waves circulating through a ring chamber up to 20,000 times per second. 

The resulting pressures and temperatures place severe demands on materials, but this is a constraint that printed copper is well-suited to address through geometric complexity otherwise unavailable in conventional manufacturing. [NASA has fired RDREs on ground-based stands in the United States](https://www.voxelmatters.com/nasa-validates-3d-printed-rocket-engine-for-deep-space-missions/), a Polish institute has tested liquid-fuelled variants, and Japan has ignited such an engine in space.

Röösli said that working at the frontier of RDRE research was accessible even at the undergraduate level. “You don't need to be exceptionally talented to develop a rocket engine after two years of study. You go step by step and help each other.”