The Scientific Workgroup for Rocketry and Spaceflight (WARR) (German: Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Raketentechnik und Raumfahrt) is a scientific workgroup situated at Technical University of Munich, composed mainly of its students. It was founded by students in 1962 with the goal to compensate for the lack of a chair for space technology at the university at the time. Since the establishment of such a chair in 1966, the group has conducted practical projects, starting with the first successful development and of a hybrid rocket in Germany. One rocket of this type was launched in 1972, another is on permanent display at Deutsches Museum. WARR has attained some public attention by for its projects in space elevator competitions, small satellites interstellar spaceflight concepts, and for winning all SpaceX Hyperloop pod competitions. Currently, WARR works in the fields of bi-liquid propulsion, satellite technology, robotics, and transportation technologies. WARR is one of the founding members of the German National Student Space Flight Society (Bundesverband studentischer Raumfahrt e.V.), a national organisation of student space clubs, similar to SEDS.
History
Project groups of WARR
Rocketry
Existing since the foundation of WARR in 1962, the department for Rocketry is the oldest project group of WARR. With the launch of the first German hybrid rocket in 1974, WARR achieved its first major success, which was promptly followed by the construction of multiple test engines. In 2009 the development of its next rocket began, called WARR-EX-2, powered by the in-house developed hybrid engine HYPER-1 with solid HTPB fuel and nitrous oxide as oxidizer. The rocket was successfully launched on 20 May 2015 from the missile base CLBI on the Atlantic coast of Brazil and reached a maximal altitude of approximately 5 km. Even before the launch of WARR-EX-2, WARR had begun working on its successor, WARR-EX-3, as part of project STERN (STudentische Experimental-RaketeN) (German abbreviation for "student experimental rocketry"), organized and financed by the German Aerospace Center. As the given objectives of STERN were already reached within WARR-EX-2, it was decided to build a larger rocket, the WARR-EX-3, also called Cryosphere. It used liquid oxygen instead of nitrous oxide, while maintaining the use of HTPB. and launched in July 2023 from FAR in California and reached an apogee of 12.4 kilometres. After the launch of the EX-3 in 2023, the launch cadence increased significantly, with two new projects, Project WESP, which succeeded the discontinued EX-1 rocket series and Project Nixus, which started a new rocket series with the EX-4 rockets. Project WESP, powered by solid rocket motors, was originally conceived as a small, quick-turnaround platform for validating avionics and recovery subsystems, but soon evolved into a two-stage program aimed at supersonic flight and the development of staging technology. On 20 June 2024, WESP launched and successfully recovered the two-stage EX-1E at the Spaceport America Cup in New Mexico. The following year a substantially lightened vehicle, the EX-1Evo, flew at the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) on 11 June 2025, where the booster performed nominally and separated cleanly before the sustainer accelerated to approximately Mach 2.5 — the fastest flight in WARR's history. After IREC the project reoriented toward developing its own solid rocket motors, with the stated objective of surpassing 100 km altitude and becoming the first European student team to reach space. In parallel, Project Nixus pursued cryogenic bi-liquid propulsion with its EX-4 series, using liquid oxygen and ethanol fed to a regeneratively cooled engine; in October 2024 the EX-4B launched at the European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC) in Portugal and reached an apogee of 1,678 m, which was the first flight of a cryogenic bi-liquid rocket in European student rocketry. One year later, in October 2025, the improved version, EX-4C also launched successfully at EuRoC, after which the team began developing an electric pump-fed propulsion system starting of the EX-5 series with the EX-5a, which will launch in October 2026. Also in 2025, WARR founded Project Retrofire to build its first rocket hopper for autonomous propulsive landing in preparation for the Collegiate Propulsive Lander Challenge, testing engine throttling, thrust vectoring and flight-control software on a full-scale hopper alongside a scaled electric prototype and feeding the resulting reusability and control expertise back into WARR's other rocketry programs.
Satellite Technology
Since the cubesat First-MOVE was primarily developed by doctoral candidates from the institute of astronautics at the TUM, the involvement of students was intensified during the development of its successor MOVE-II. To make use of WARR's existing infrastructure, a new project group was founded, where the members could work on all subsystems. In 2012, development of a mission profile was started. After approval by the German Aerospace Center in 2015, launch of the satellite is expected in 2017. MOVE-II is a 10x10x10 cm big satellite (1U-Cubesat). It consists of a bus on the one side, which is responsible for power supply, communication and attitude control. Its Mission is to educate Students and Test some prototype Solar Cells. MOVE-IIb is an almost exact copy of MOVE-II launched in 2019.
Space-Elevator WARR Space-Elevator is developing climber robots since its founding in 2005, and also organizes corresponding competitions. The first climber was developed for the JSETEC2009 competition and reached the targeted 150 m in the shortest time. In 2011 the European Space Elevator Challenge (EUSPEC) was established, which also focused on energy efficiency. Following that year the competition was repeated with increased cable length of 50 m.
Interstellar Flight
The WARR Interstellar Flight Team (ISF) is working on concepts for interstellar travel. The goals of WARR ISF are:
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