Who Are We?
We are a dedicated group of students from The Missouri University of Science and Technology that work together to design, build, and test rockets for scientific use.
Every year we design a new solid propellant rocket for our competition, The Spaceport America Cup. We design and build the entire rocket from scratch out of the Missouri S&T Student Design and Experiential Learning Center (SDELC).
While we are actively getting things ready for our competition we are also currently in development of our first liquid propellant engine and doing bi-propellant engine test fires.
We seek to provide everyone a pathway for our new members to get involved and get their hands dirty by learning the basics of rocketry in our Rockets and You series and our Level One Program. We then put their skills to the test competing together in the Argonia Cup challenge.
We also fly payloads for commercial entities providing launch opportunities for everyone to get involved in launch operations. We provide hands on experience to our members to help prepare them for jobs after college. Members are given the unique opportunity to get direct exposure to how rockets are made and education on why we do things the way that we do. Our team objective is to assist in the professional and personal development of tomorrow’s engineers by pushing the boundaries of experimental rocketry.
Competition
Spaceport America Cup
“The Spaceport America Cup is designed around IREC – the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition for student rocketry teams from all over the country and around the world. With over 110 teams from colleges and universities in eleven countries, 2017 will be the competition’s biggest year yet. Students will be launching solid, liquid, and hybrid rockets to target altitudes of 10,000 and 30,000 feet.”
– Spaceport America’s Website
All Teams are judged on the following criteria:
- Technical poster and podium sessions before an expert judges panel during a conference day
- Written technical report report on their project concept, requirements, design implementation, and testing
- Written technical report appendices on safety analysis, including hazard & risk assessments
- Quality and competency of final design implementation
- Amount of student researched & developed systems, versus off-the-shelf components
- Rocket flight performance measured by distance from target altitude and successful recovery
- Payload innovation and functionality
- Professional conduct and use of procedures
For more information visit the Spaceport America site.
Milestones
2021: Andoremda II
- Teams first successful 30k feet attempt
- Highest impulse motor the team has used thus far
- 100% recovery rate
2019: Nova
- First year where two rockets were constructed
- Seven launches between these two rockets were conducted
- 100% recovery rate
2018: Daedalus
- First student designed and built 30k feet rocket
- New more powerful antenna design
2017: Hades
- First flight on a student designed and built solid rocket motor (Zeus motor)
- WIFI communication between the avionics bays reducing internal wiring
- First GPS tracking system used for rocket recovery
2016: Helios
- First fully student designed and built composite airframe
- First working telemetry system
2015: Hyperion, team’s first flight attempt at IREC
- First in-house made parachutes
- First in-house nosecone
- Intended to fly to 25,000 feet, crashed, utterly destroyed on impact