Blasting Off with the UMN Rocket Team
March 2023 — The student-led University of Minnesota Rocket Team has had a challenging but rewarding year. The Rocket Team works to design and build Student Researched and Developed (SRAD) rockets, which includes formulating and casting their solid-rocket motors, doing composite layups for the body tubes, and even sewing their parachutes!
The Team started 2022 by launching the recovery test rocket, Xenon Azure, multiple times throughout the bitterly cold winter months (and continuously chilly spring months) to test the recovery system designed for the 2022 Spaceport America (SA) Cup. In spring, the team held their first-ever "rocket reveal" event on May 13. The team showed off their largest and most advanced rocket to date. The 8.5" diameter rocket, dubbed "Iridium Sandstorm," weighed in at about 260 pounds. This rocket features an entirely new custom rocket motor hardware, new active control and avionics hardware, structural design components, and an entirely new payload design.
This successful debut was then followed by a trip to Southern New Mexico for the Spaceport America (SA) Cup. The event, which is the world’s largest intercollegiate rocket engineering conference and competition, brings together over 1,700 students and faculty annually. This was the first in-person Cup since 2019, so the team was especially grateful for the chance to participate. The team competed in the 10k SRAD category. Unfortunately, Iridium Sandstorm prematurely separated at 4,100 ft due to excessive drag. While this impacted the overall score, the team still placed fourth in their category and gained valuable insight as to how to improve.
Preparations for the 2023 Spaceport America Cup competition have already begun, with the team planning to launch a vehicle to 30k feet. They are returning to the tried and true 6-inch vehicle design that won the SARD motor category in 2019 and won the overall competition in 2021. Between now and June, the different sub-teams will be doing composite layups for the body tubes, casting the propellant for the custom motors, and machining all necessary hardware that the Team didn’t have before. Finally, they will perform more recovery test launches with an all-new test rocket, Gold Celadon, so everything is ready to go before heading back to New Mexico in June.
Future Projects and Outreach
Besides planning for the SA Cup, the focus for the 2022-23 school year is to develop a rocket to launch into space. The Team’s high-altitude project had its most recent flight in September of 2021 at FAR (friends of amateur rocketry) in the Mojave Desert. This rocket was designed to go to ~90,000ft. This year, they are developing what is known as a "spaceshot" with the predicted altitude being ~330,000ft, also known as the Kármán line or the boundary of space.
Members of the team have also been taking part in different community outreach opportunities within the Twin Cities. Four members of the team met with a Cub Scout troop from Red Pine Elementary School in Eagan, MN, to show off some of the rockets and give the kids a simple overview of the Team and aerospace engineering.
A second subteam met with the Robotics team at Eagan High School as well as other robotics teams from nearby schools. Team members shared how they manage a large, complex engineering team/project. They also spoke about the journey from high school to college, their experiences in STEM and concluded with having small group discussions with students interested in various design areas (subteams) of the Rocket Team.
You gave it to the Max!
The Team also wishes to share a huge THANK YOU to all who donated during Give to the Max Day on November 18, 2022. They raised over $5,000 with an additional $5,000 matched by Collins Aerospace Systems. Because of your generosity, the Team will be able to put the money towards travel costs for the SA Cup competition, which will allow the Team to take more students on the trip. If you want to continue supporting the Rocket Team, check out the donation link found on the Rocket Team’s website: https://rkt.aem.umn.edu/