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With the “New Space” era we are now seeing a prominent rise in the development of Reusable Launch Vehicles with vertical landing capabilities. This project aims to design and construct a scaled model of such a vehicle but using a cold gas thruster as a means of propulsion. In order to do so, multiple disciplines of engineering are required to develop critical systems such as retro-propulsion, thrust vector control and aerobraking. From structural simulations and CFD analysis to stabilization algorithms and FDM manufacturing, all the methods employed to carry out this complex task presented their complications and challenges, all of which had to be recorded, analysed and overcome. The propellant chosen for the task of propulsion was compressed air, due to its compatibility and availability. Design requirements were established from the beginning but as the project evolved it was clear several of these could not be realized due to limitations of the components available. Most noticeably, the maximum thrust value was found to be restricted by the propulsion system, which makes it impossible to achieve sufficient deceleration for a controlled landing. Having said that, the project successfully lays down the foundations for future iterations and outlines the next steps required in order to solve the main issues related to thrust. If these issues were to be resolved, there is confidence in coming closer to the project’s aim of using compressed air as a means of propulsion

State of the art rocket engines are reaching performance levels that have become limited by the available manufacturing techniques. With a great focus on these engines’ efficiency, rocket engine producers are focusing on increasing combustion chamber pressures and temperatures, which in turn produces increasingly greater structural and thermal loads. Complex cooling systems are usually used to tackle this issue, being the most predominant formula to use the stored cryogenic propellant as a coolant before being injected in the combustion pressure, more commonly known as regenerative cooling. However, these cooling systems are limited by the state of the art manufacturing techniques. To deal with this issue, efforts have been made to implement modern metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques to rocket engine production. In order to show the extent of the benefits of such innovations, a rocket engine nozzle has been designed following the characteristics of SpaceX’s latest Raptor engines. This design has been tested through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations so as to validate its performance parameters and study how the implementation of metal AM techniques would improve the engine’s performance. The economic feasibility of such implementation has been studied through the comparison to former techniques, as well as their impact to the environment