PARSEC Caltech Rocketry

Test Stands

Our test stands — the hardware every other piece of hardware must survive. Led by Monolith, they let us hot‑fire LOX/kerosene engines with remote operation, full instrumentation, and a healthy respect for cryogenic oxidizer.

The stands

Operational

Monolith

Our flagship hot‑fire stand and the workhorse of the program. RUDy fires on Monolith today; ICICLE will qualify here before it ever flies on Icarus. Every run is operated from a safe distance by the Ground Support and avionics teams — propellant loading, pressurization, ignition, abort logic, and data acquisition, all remote and all instrumented.

CAD line drawing of the Monolith test stand with mounted valves
Monolith — CAD schematicFIG‑01
The Monolith test stand venting cryogenic propellant during LOX chilldown
Monolith LOX chilldownFIG‑02
PARSEC members preparing Monolith for a hot fire at sunset
Preparing Monolith for hotfireFIG‑03

In development

Minilith

A smaller stand dedicated to gaseous oxygen and methane igniter testing.

Planned

Megalith

The largest — and last — stand we’ll ever need: built for higher chamber pressures and roughly three times the propellant volume of Monolith.