Over 1,300 participants attended the 2022 Spaceport America Cup in Southern New Mexico in June, representing 95 higher education institutes from 16 countries across the globe.
Sierra County, July 15, 2022– Spaceport America and the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) have announced the winners of the 2022 Spaceport America Cup provided by Sierra Space. The University of Sydney took home the overall winners’ trophy after impressing the judges with their 30,000ft rocket launch.
Over 1,300 participants attended the 2022 Spaceport America Cup in Southern New Mexico in June, representing 95 higher education institutes from 16 countries across the globe. Student teams participated in presentations and displays at the Las Cruces Convention Center on June 21, followed by two and a half days of launching at Spaceport America’s vertical launch area.
“The Cup fulfills Spaceport America’s mission to promote educational involvement in spaceport activities and training of the workforce to develop the skills needed to enter aerospace careers” said Scott McLaughlin, Executive Director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. “We have seen many rocketeers return to Spaceport America once they have graduated and joined the aerospace workforce. We are particularly excited to see so many of our local institutions getting involved in the competition this year and competing for the Chile Cup.”
The Chile Cup award was created by Spaceport America to help encourage friendly competition between New Mexico and borderland universities. The first award was won by University of New Mexico (UNM) in 2019 with New Mexico State University (NMSU) as the only other competitor. This year, four local teams participated including UNM, NMSU, New Mexico Tech, and the University of El Paso with NMSU taking home the Chile Cup for the first time.
The results of the competition were delivered via live stream on July 16, 2022. “I’m extremely proud of all of the teams who joined us at the 2022 Spaceport America” said Cliff Olmsted, President and Chairperson, Experimental Sounding Rocket Association. “Each team faces their own unique challenges and hurdles to overcome throughout the competition. The caliber of the students after gaining this experience is invaluable. Watching the positive impact that Spaceport America Cup has on the world is inspiring.”
The Spaceport America Cup is the world’s largest intercollegiate rocketry engineering contest (IREC) and has been held in New Mexico since 2017. The event is a partnership between the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) and Spaceport America. The year-long engineering competition begins at the start of the academic year and requires teams to manage complex projects designing amateur high-power rockets carrying avionics and payloads to 10,000 and 30,000 feet in altitude. Drawn by the opportunity to collaborate and compete at a world-class spaceport facility, student teams represent the best and brightest from institutions located across the world. This is the premiere recruitment opportunity for sponsors which included Sierra Space, Blue Origin, Kansas City National Security Campus managed by Honeywell, Virgin Galactic, Mountain View Hospital, and Fiore Industries Inc in 2022.
2022 Spaceport America Cup Award Winners
Sportsmanship
- Winner: Team 81 from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts
- Runner-up: Team 8 from Brigham Young University, Utah.
Nancy Squires Team Spirit Award
- Winner: Team 125 from Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
- Runner-up: Team 60 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Charles Hoult Award for Modeling & Simulation
- Winner: Team 26 from The University of Melbourne, Australia
- Runner-up: Team 55 from Monash University, Australia
Dr. Gil Moore Award for Innovation
- Winner: Team 119, University of Michigan – Dearborn
- Runners-up: Team 34 from Chulalongkorn University from Thailand, Team 18, Cornell University, NY, and Team 57 from the University of Leeds, UK
Jim Furfaro Award for Technical Excellence
- Winner: Team 89 from the University of Akron, Ohio
- Runner-up: Team 139 from the University of Waterloo, Canada
James Barrowman Award for Flight Dynamics
- Winner: Team 7, Boston University – difference of only 0.14% (14’) from their predicted apogee
- Runner-up: Team 8, Brigham Young University – 0.17% (18’)
Chili Cup (Highest Score between University of New Mexico, New Mexico State, New Mexico Tech and UTEP)
- Winner: Team 12, New Mexico State University
- Runner-up: Team 61, University of New Mexico
10K COTS
- Winner: Team 14, Case Western Reserve University
- Runner-up: Team 137, The Citadel
10K SRAD Solid
- Winner: Team 65, Kent State University
- Runner-up: Team 41, Iowa State University of Science and Technology
10K SRAD Hybrid/Liquid
- Winner: Team 67, Polytechnique Montreal
- Runner-up: Team 149, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology
30K COTS
- Winner: Team 133, The University of Sydney
- Runner-up: Team 60, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
30K SRAD Solid
- Winner: Team 148, West Virginia University
- Runner-up Team 64, Oregon State University
30K SRAD Hybrid/Liquid
- Winner: Team 134, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Runner-up: Team 27, ETH Zurich
Spaceport America Cup Winner
- Winner: Team 133, The University of Sydney
- Runner-up: Team 14, Case Western Reserve University
The final scores and details for all teams can be found at https://www.soundingrocket.org/2022-sa-cup—15th-anniversary.html
