Spaceport America Cup: Student teams assemble and launch rockets in international competition

Algernon D'Ammassa | Las Cruces Sun-News

JORNADA DEL MUERTO - The temperatures were in the high eighties by 9 a.m. on Friday, and still climbing while the unrelenting sun and blowing dust made conditions feel hotter still.

It was the second day of an international competition of college rocketeers, competing in seven categories measuring flight performance against teams' projections at apogees of 10,000, 30,000, and 100,000 feet.

As the temperature climbed, the university students assembling rockets in their staging areas were more concerned about the wind, knowing that if they had an opportunity to launch they might not have much time to get to the launch pad.

The Experimental Sounding Rocket Association has run the annual intercollegiate rocket competition since 2006. Last year the event, rebranded as the Spaceport America Cup, moved to Spaceport America.

This year's competition kicked off at the Las Cruces Convention Center Tuesday morning for a day of exhibitions by 124 teams from 10 countries.

More: Spaceport America Cup rocket competition opens in Las Cruces

After a day for orientation and testing at the spaceport on Wednesday, three days of launches got underway Thursday with the wind blowing dust across the desert floor at Spaceport America, located on state trust land southeast of Truth or Consequences.

A team from California Polytechnic State University was working quickly yet carefully Friday morning to prepare its rocket, nicknamed Kim Jong Boom, while gauging the wind.

"We haven't done a test launch of this system yet," Dennis Ho, the team's project leader said. Safety judges were divided on their design so they adapted their plans in order to pass safety inspection and be cleared for launch.

"We know the motor works and won't blow up," he said, as he made adjustments with project deputy Mark Murphy. They said they had tested other systems before launch, but not their payload: a remotely operated glider that woud be ejected after their rocket hit its apogee. Their biggest worry was that strengthening winds might send their rocket into a spiral.

Minutes later, teams stopped to watch a rocket launch and to see its tail fins come apart shortly after it passed the rail, sending the missile off course in a swooping motion. Pausing to watch each launch was not only out of interest and respect, but a safety precaution in case a rocket or stray parts flew near.

Extra challenge for international teams

A team from the École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) in Montreal, Canada, made a road trip to New Mexico for the competition. Team members reported rising at 3 a.m. to travel from their Las Cruces bed and breakfast for an early arrival at the spaceport to set up tent and prepare, in hopes of an early launch time to have the rest of the day to go over the recovered equipment, assess failures and rebuild.

Other teams stayed in Truth or Consequences, while a few others camped on site.

For international teams, the logistics involved in getting the rocket components across the world was nearly as arduous as the competition itself. A team from technical university ETH Zürich in Switzerland shipped most of its equipment by air to El Paso in a custom-manufactured case, while other teams flew with their components packed as securely as they could.

One day ahead of International Women in Engineering Day, the ETS spokesperson, Alexa Cruz, spoke about women in engineering and aerospace in Canada, where women take up 25 percent of technical aerospace jobs as reported by the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.

Cruz said enrollment by women at ETS was closer to 18 percent, and recent ETS graduate Tomas Boisvert added that the engineering school's enrollment remained at a 9:1 ratio of men to women. While Cruz was the only women on the ETS team, a team from Montreal's McGill University showed a mix of men and women.

For Aggies, a 'cato'

On Thursday, the competition tallied 44 launches despite the wind, with the pace slowing somewhat on Friday morning.

All operations must cease and everything must be on the ground at 6 p.m. The launches continue through Saturday, with the awards ceremony planned for Saturday night at the Las Cruces Convention Center.

At the spaceport's launch control area, a large signpost listed all the universities participating with their launch times and abbreviated notes about how each launch went, such as "cato" for a catastrophic failure or "shred" for when the rocket loses pieces or comes apart.

The Atomic Aggies — the first team from New Mexico State University to enter the competition — made it through safety checks and got to the launchpad on Thursday despite the majority of their team being new to rocketry.

Shortly after ignition, however, they had a "cato," their rocket barely clearing the rail before partly exploding, according to witnesses.

When launches went well, the rockets would fly straight toward the sun with a goal of 10,000 or 30,000 feet. At apogee, black powder charges release the first of two parachutes that allow the rockets to fall safely to the ground.

Decked in red and smiling broadly, site operations director Chris Lopez said that despite working 18-hour days and constantly monitoring the wind, he was enjoying day two.

A team of students marched a fully assembled rocket into the launch control area as Lopez said, "These are the next idea-generators, and you know you are at the beginning of helping them."

Alexander Schmid, one of the leaders of the Zürich team, put the competition in perspective when he described how other teams helped them recover damaged components from their failed launch earlier in the day.

"All the teams help out each other," he said. "It's a competition but you want to beat the other teams on the launch pad. If they can't launch, it's not a success for you, because you want to see which system is better."

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonActor on Twitter.

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