At daybreak on August 24, two very different rockets rose from Taiwan’s southern coast. The SST3 and FARCX-1 launches marked two major milestones for NYCU and Taiwan’s emerging academic rocket program.
The SST3 was the largest solid-propellant rocket launched in Taiwan under a university-led project since the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) began supporting collegiate rocket initiatives. The FARCX-1, meanwhile, demonstrated a locally developed liquid-propulsion system — a far more complex technology rarely attempted by student teams.
For the team, the twin launches were about more than sending rockets into the sky. They were a test of whether Taiwan’s university researchers and students could design, build and integrate two fundamentally different propulsion systems — and operate them in parallel.
