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Up, up, and away!��

The 12-foot tall rocket soared upward, screaming into the sky as it broke the sound barrier.

�ճ���� entry to the�� reached 24,000 feet and earned second place in the tournament.

“The flight was awesome. All the hard work is worth it when you finally see it go up and vanish out of sight in a few seconds,” said Alex Virga, a University of Colorado Boulder aerospace senior and co-leader of the competition team.

Held March 29-30, the competition brought together 20 college teams from across the United States to rural Kansas for a showcase of high-powered rocketry. CU in Space had spent months designing, molding, and shaping fiberglass, carbon fiber and other assorted materials to meet the competition requirement of a two-stage rocket carrying a payload of multiple golf balls that could reach 9,000-40,000 feet in altitude.

Designing a rocket

“We made a python script to map out all the possible rocket configurations we could use and the different scoring metrics to determine the most important considerations for the design,” said Rithul Rengarajan, an aerospace sophomore and competition co-lead.

The requirement of a two-stage rocket presented unique challenges. Many members of the team had taken part in past competitions and amateur rocket building, but had never faced this level of difficulty.

“High powered rocketry can be pretty complex, especially a two-stage rocket. You’re essentially stacking two rockets on top of each other and then you have to figure out how to separate and ignite the second stage safely in midair,” Virga said.

Prototype launch and breakdown

In the months leading up to the competition, they built a prototype vehicle and conducted two test launches. One went well, with both stages of the rocket firing successfully. The second launch, however, was not as positive.

“We had an electronics failure and the rocket went ballistic,” said Leya Shaw, team captain and an aerospace junior.��

The team had noticed issues with an onboard computer before the test launch, but did not believe it was a fatal problem. They were wrong, and it led them to take additional precautions with their competition rocket build.

“At Argonia we all had the ability to say I’m not comfortable with the launch. We implemented protocols like NASA does before a launch where everyone has go/no go approval,” Virga said.

Competition time

The night before the competition, three team members pulled an all-nighter to complete integration of their avionics and computer systems into the rocket. The work demonstrated a new problem: one of their altimeters was failing.��

Members of the team at the launch pad.

“Thankfully, at an event like this, there are a lot of rocketry vendors there. We ended up buying a new altimeter and were good to go,” Rengarajan said.

Well, mostly good to go.��

After squeezing everything into the rocket and carrying it out to the launch pad, something went wrong again.

“The computer was showing an error. We’d already installed the igniters by that point, so it was a very careful dance of disarming the electronics, removing the initiators and making sure the rocket was safe to move and take apart. Luckily just one wire had popped loose from a screw terminal,” Virga said.

After a quick reassembly, the launch went off without a hitch.

Of the 20 teams, just five had their launches recorded for a score, including CU Boulder. Several teams had second stage separation issues or could not find their rockets after landing to recover the onboard computers containing critical altitude data for scoring.

With a second place finish, the team took home a cash prize as well as valuable flight computers and altimeters donated by corporate sponsors for the top finishing teams.

Record of success

It was a stellar result for a team with a history of success. Last year, CU in Space competed in the NASA University Launch Initiative,��earning the rookie award, among other honors. In 2023, the team’s predecessor, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, earned��first in all categories at that year’s NASA First Nations Launch competition.

Their eyes are now on 2026 and potentially entering the International Rocket Engineering Competition, which brings in teams from around the world.

“We want to be CU Boulder’s competition rocket team,” Shaw said. “Our motto is learn, burn and earn. For learn, if you have no experience, we’ll give it to you. Burn, we launch a lot. Earn, we want to earn our reputation in the rocketry community.”