NASA Announces Winners In celebration of International Women’s Day, NASA held a competition for students from universities around the country to design and build an amateur rocket that would launch their payload into space. The winners of the competition were announce on March 8th, and three teams of students will be launching their rockets in 2022.
What is a student launch?
NASA has announce the winners of its student launch competition, with both teams from the University of Michigan taking home top honors. The winning team, led by aerospace engineering Ph.D. candidate Rohit Karnak, use a modify Nerf gun to launch a 3-foot-long model rocket into space. The second-place team from UC Riverside use a catapult to send a model rocket soaring more than 100 feet into the air.
“The students’ ingenuity and passion for space exploration was on display throughout the competition,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The finalists show us that student creativity can result in high-quality launches.” In total, NASA receive submissions from more than 60 universities across the United States.
How is a student launch different than an official NASA launch?
NASA has announced the winners of its student launch competition. The top three teams will each receive a $10,000 prize and their spacecraft. Will be mount on a Space Launch System flight that is scheduled to launch in 2020. Student teams had to design, build, and test a small spacecraft that could be launch into orbit using only an inexpensive rocket. The challenge was how to reduce the cost of the rocket while still. Achieving a high enough launch velocity to achieve orbit.
One team, from UC Berkeley, design a system that use two smaller rockets to boost the spacecraft off the ground. Another team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center use a single large rocket to send their spacecraft into orbit. Both designs were successful in reaching orbit, but UC Berkeley’s system require less fuel and therefore was cheaper to build.
Who can participate in a Student Launch?
Participants in the Student Launch Competition from colleges and universities across the United States were announce today by NASA. The top three teams will receive a $10,000 prize, while the remaining teams will receive $2,500 each. The competition was open to colleges and universities with an enrollee undergraduate. Or graduate student population of at least 1,000 students.
The three finalists are:
- Clemson University – Clemson Team
- University of Utah – Ute Rocket Team
- Virginia Commonwealth University – VCU Rocket Team
The competition winners
In celebration of National Astronomy Day, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Maryland, announce the winners of its Student Launch Competition. The top three student teams were award a total of $10,000 each. The competition was open to students in grades six through twelve and require participants to design and build a small satellite capable of capturing high-resolution images of Earth.
The satellites had to be launch into orbit using an inexpensive homemade launch vehicle. The winning teams were made up of students from across the United States and include members from both public and private schools. The team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was award first place overall with their satellite name “Eve”. Second place went to the team from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Texas, with their satellite name “Pegasus”, and third place was claim by the team from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with their satellite name “Oculus” “These young scientists have shown us that there is great talent out there waiting to be tap into,” said Lisa Spiller, director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Their innovative designs show off what is possible when students combine their love for space exploration with their technical expertise.”