In Greek mythology, Icarus was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Daedalus was reknown as one of the greatest engineering minds in ancient history from Athens. He built the fabled Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minos' daughter, Ariadne, a ball of string in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, to surive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

 

A brilliant craftsman, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before taking off from the island, warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms, and so Icarus fell into the sea in the area which today bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.

 

Icarus is now rising from the ashes in Phoenix, to fly again; ever-eager to reach the heavens. Unsatisfied and resentful of his father's poor engineering, Icarus is setting out now to design and build his own means of reaching space.

 

At Arizona State University, there is also another rocketry team, Daedalus Astronautics. As a new rocketry team, formed in the metropolitan area of Phoenix at ASU, it seemed only fitting that our team take the name of Icarus Rocketry, given our purpose and mission.