NASA Rocket Launch

A team of 30 UTA aerospace engineering students placed third in the Rookie Category at the 2020 NASA Student Launch competition. They were among 46 other college and university teams who designed, built, tested, and flew a payload and high-powered rocket to between 4,000 and 5,500 feet in altitude.

In addition, teams had to use an unmanned vehicle to collect 10 millili1ters of simulated lunar ice from one of several stations around the launch site, then safely transport the sample at least 10 feet away from the station. They also had to predict their rocket’s altitude in their preliminary design review submission.

“It’s really cool that we got to work with NASA engineers,” says Katie Lehocky, a junior mechanical engineering major and the team lead. “The project follows actual NASA engineering design processes. We had to present our ideas, be prepared to answer questions from those engineers, learn from their comments, and apply them to our project.”