Congratulations to the Case Rocket Team for taking first place in the 10K Commercial of the Shelf Components at the 2022 SPACEPORT AMERICA CUP
*Case Rocket Team* just placed 1st in the 10,000ft Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) category and 1st overall among US teams and 2nd internationally at the Spaceport America Cup, held between June 21 - 25. The Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) at Spaceport America, in Las Cruces, NM, is the largest international collegiate rocketry competition, with teams from all over the world. After nearly two years of the pandemic slowing our work and with the most advanced rocket the team has yet designed, we are incredibly happy with our performance at IREC. This was additionally our first year competing in which we were able to attend in person and launch at the event. The goal of the competition is to launch a rocket to a target altitude, in our category 10,000 ft AGL, as close as possible. We came within 102 feet of that altitude, in the top 99th percentile of teams in terms of accuracy. Additionally, we had a fully successful flight test, with no failures in any critical systems, allowing for a full recovery of the rocket intact. The goal of the rocket, in addition to the altitude target, was to deploy a separately recovered technical payload and nose cone. The payload was a flight test at an altitude of a parafoil recovery method the team hopes to implement further to allow for fully autonomous recovery of a scientific package. We're incredibly proud of this achievement and can't wait to keep launching bigger rockets! Thank you to everyone on the team and our sponsors who made this possible!