Spaceport Cup welcomes back rocket teams from around world

LAS CRUCES – The Spaceport America Cup welcomes back teams representing universities from around the world next week for the largest international intercollegiate rocket engineering competition.

Cheers and excitement will fill the air at Spaceport America’s Vertical Launch Area for the second annual Spaceport America Cup. On June 19 -23, Spaceport America will host more than 1,500 college students from around the world, along with participating aerospace companies, recruiters, media and spectators.

The university rocket teams are composed of students from many backgrounds and disciplines. It takes more than rocket scientists to make the project come to life.

For the past year, Spaceport America officials, along with rocket competition experts at the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association, have spent countless hours to facilitate this event.

“Together with our outstanding partners at ESRA, we are pleased to welcome back university students from all over the world for a week of rocketeering and comradery,” said Daniel Hicks, chief executive officer of Spaceport America.

Sponsors for this year’s event include Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Boeing, Fiore Industries Inc., MountianView Regional Medical Center, Misumi, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Raytheon, Jacobs, United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Professional Aerospace Contractors Association, White Sands Missile Range, Virgin Orbit, Northrup Grumman, Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces, International Symposium of Personal and Commercial Spaceflight , New Mexico Space Grant, city of Las Cruces, and Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

“We are very happy to have our aerospace partners represented here with us, to cheer and reward STEM hard work and rocket science,” said Karen Barker, Spaceport America director.

Student teams are from Canada, Egypt, Great Britain, India, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, Switzerland, as well as 31 of the 50 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia. For the first time in the competition history, New Mexico State University will be competing. Go Atomic Aggies!

The rocket competition is divided into categories and is judged based on how accurate the team’s rocket performance projections are compared to actual flight performance. Categories are:

• 10,000 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) apogee with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solid or hybrid rockets
• 30,000 feet AGL apogee with COTS solid or hybrid rockets
• 10,000 feet AGL apogee with student researched and developed (SRAD) solid rockets
• 30,000 feet AGL apogee with SRAD solid rockets
• 10,000 feet AGL apogee with SRAD hybrid and liquid rockets
• 30, 000 feet AGL apogee with SRAD hybrid and liquid rockets
• 100, 000 feet AGL apogee with SRAD hybrid and rockets

The Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA), partner with the Spaceport for the Spaceport America Cup, is a non-profit organization founded in 2003 for the purpose of fostering and promoting engineering knowledge and experience in the field of rocketry. ESRA's current focus is experimental sounding rocketry, which they define between "experimental" and "research" of high-power rockets and sounding rockets capable of achieving space altitude, at 100 kilometers.

Spaceport America invites the public, students and businesses to be part of these exciting events fostering the next generation of rocket scientists. Visit SpaceportAmericaCup.com to purchase spectator tickets and to learn more about the competition.

Spectators are invited to see the rockets displayed at the Las Cruces Convention Center beginning at 9 am Tuesday. Food and drinks are available for purchase. The event is free to the public and attendees can interact with rocket teams, watch team and industry sponsor presentations and speak with recruiters from aerospace companies.

On Wednesday teams will have the entire day to assemble their rocket in the field and test components as needed while being judged at the Spaceport America Vertical Launch Area. This event is not open to the public.

Teams will be launching and recovering rockets Thursday through Saturday. Spectators are welcome to come and join in the excitement. Bring lawn chairs, blankets, radios and shade that won’t be disruptive to others. There will be viewing areas and teams will show off their recovered rockets. Concessions will be available for purchase.

In addition, there is a free Star Party that the public is invited to Friday night. Dr. Alan Hale (of Hale-Bopp comet discovery) is planning to speak beginning at 7:30 p.m. just inside the Spaceport Main Gate, weather permitting. The Spaceport welcomes anyone with a telescopes or interest. This will be during the first quarter moon, with Jupiter in the sky.

Visit http://spaceportamerica.com for more information.