Spaceport America Cup rocketry competition weathers rain and mud
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES – After climbing through the driver’s side window of his minivan, with his shoes and socks soaked in mud, Noah Charleson-Sterritt peered across the surrounding ranchlands and assessed his options.
His mobile phone had no signal, meaning he couldn’t call or text his teammates who were waiting for him at Spaceport America, several miles away.
His team, consisting of about a dozen University of British Columbia students, was preparing to launch a rocket Thursday afternoon aiming for an apogee of 30,000 feet as part of its entry into the world’s largest intercollegiate rocketry competition, the Spaceport America Cup.
The team made the trip from Vancouver to Las Cruces, New Mexico in two automobiles. One of those vehicles was now mired deep in a deep puddle from the past day’s rains on an unpaved county road. Some distance down the road, calves found relief from the desert heat lying down in the mud.
“I didn’t think it was that deep,” he said. “I was focusing on getting back in time because we’re waiting for everyone to launch.”
Fortunately for Noah, a federal express driver has been arrested to drive up the road, and offered him a satellite phone. He was told a tow truck might take two hours to arrive; So instead, trusting the security of his minivan to the cows, he accepted a ride back to the spaceport where, he hoped, the staff might be able to pull him out of the mud.
Weather delay
The previous day, after all, there was a few vehicles getting stuck in the ravines of the Jornada del Muerto desert basin of Sierra County, where New Mexico’s purpose-built commercial spaceport is located on a remote stretch of state land close to White Sands. Missile Range.
Wednesday was the first of three days of launches for more than 100 colleges and universities that made the trip to New Mexico out of 149 reportedly registered. However, rain and muddy conditions led to launches being canceled that day.
Tori Hoffman, a New Mexico State University student who is also working as a business intern at Virgin Galactic, said she and her teammates spent Wednesday waiting outside in a parking lot near the spaceport’s central campus.
The team’s leader, Scott Komar, was buoyant about returning to the spaceport for one last student competition, which he called his “swan song.” Komar graduated last year and has begun his aerospace career with SpaceX.
NMSU’s team, he said, expanded rapidly this year, from 10 to 40 active participants, with the hope that the event would culminate in an actual launch. The team achieved a successful test launch in April.
The rocketry competition draws thousands of students, faculty members and aerospace professionals first to the Las Cruces Convention Center, where teams present exhibitions about the rockets they build and the research payloads they fly to the plan; and then about 50 miles north of the spaceport’s vertical launch area.
The event has been organized year since 2006 by the Nonprofit Experimental Sounding Rocket Association. It was held in Green River, Utah until it moved to the spaceport in 2017, which is when the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition was rebranded as the Spaceport America’s Cup.
The first in-person event in two years
This week was the event’s return to in-person competition after the 2020 event was canceled and the 2021 Cup was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the launch area Thursday, ESRA and spaceport staff arrived to support teams as early as 4 am integrating preliminary work with their rocket systems and did what they could to move the final safety checks, preparations and launches as efficiently as possible.
Adding to the time pressure, a new federal rule this year requires teams to stop working and emerge from their tents for each launch.
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Spaceport America spokesman Alice Carruth explained that under the Federal Aviation Administration waiver that permits students to launch rockets at the facility, any and all spectators were considered “active participants” to cease activities, stand outside of tents or vehicles and watch each rocket. The whole time it was in the air and point in its direction for the trajectory up and down.
Complying with the rule proved difficult because of issues with the public announcement system at the encampment, where some speakers were not working and power generators drowned out messages. Spaceport teams in red vests would shout warnings as countdowns began and teams would lay down their tools.
The encampment consisted of tents raised in neat rows, many sporting national flags or university banners. MountainView Regional Medical Center, a sponsor of the competition, had a medical tent and shaded area set up for anyone overwhelmed by the heat or by health events. Aerospace companies such as Raytheon, Blue Origin and others set up exhibition tables hoping to introduce their companies to emerging young talent. The atmosphere was busy yet cheerful, with many teams observing each other’s soldering irons and other necessities.
“We help each other out,” said David Avalos, while gazing into the sky looking for a red parachute amid the clouds, “but at the same time, down deep, I want to do better – especially with the Chile Cup.”
The Chile Cup is a parallel competition exclusively for university teams from New Mexico and Texas.
Avalos was part of a team from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro. Their faculty advisor, mechanical engineering professor Mike Hargather, proudly displayed the rocket motor the students had built themselves. A team of seven worked swiftly, organizing and assembling the components.
From a distance
The first rocket launched around 8 am Thursday, as several hundred people applauded and cheered. The second one demonstrated why the FAA preferred that everyone on the grounds paid close attention. The rocket broke up immediately after launch, sending a mild sonic wave across the tents. Carruth referred to it as a CATO: “Catastrophe after take-off.”
“That’s why we do these at a distance,” the overhead announcer remarked over a distant speaker.
Like Charleson-Steritt, who beat it through mud and hardship to see his team’s rocket fly, many international teams had harrowing tales of crossing continents and oceans with rocket components, shipments delayed, and essential pieces arriving just in the nick of time.
Anish Silian, a team headed by 10 students from the Manipal Institute of Technology (“The MIT of India,” a student called out while working on the rocket) said government restrictions on rocket launches back home required them to test different rocket components separately. General Chat Chat Lounge
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A team of students from Malaysia competing here for the first time seek to capture that spirit in the rock of their name: HEBAT, Standing for “Hard Work,” Experience, Believe, Achieve and Together. Professor Norilmi Amilia Ismail, a mentoring team member of 11 students from Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, said their rocket’s payload included atmospheric measuring devices, medals intended for the team’s sponsors and a tiny astronaut figure.
Launches are scheduled to continue at the spaceport through Noon Saturday, followed by five hours of site cleanup. The competitors then return to the Las Cruces Convention Center for a grand prize with a grand prize of the Spaceport America Cup trophy, designed to resemble the arc sculpture that greets visitors at the spaceport’s front gate.
Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451, [email protected] or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.