Before the ‘Rockets’ Red Glare’ of July 4, Celebrate UVA’s Spaceport Launch
Video of the UVA launch courtesy of the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association.
UVA Rocketry team members successfully launched — and recovered from the rain-soaked New Mexico desert — their 11-foot rocket, Sabre 1, at the Spaceport America Cup 2024 on Friday, June 21, as part of a weeklong event that began June 17.
It was the team’s first-ever entry in the world’s largest collegiate rocketry competition. The Experimental Sounding Rocket Association organizes as many as 150 teams each year at Spaceport America, a commercial launch site in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin, 45 miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Nine University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science students, all leaders on the student-run UVA Rocketry competition team, and their adviser, Mike McPherson, represented the University.
The week’s activities included a session with the competition’s judges, who inspected the rocket and quizzed the students on their design and fabrication choices.
‘A Textbook Flight’
After a couple of scrubbed launches due to a GPS issue and bad weather — including an epic dust storm and high winds that wrecked much of the tent city set up for the competition — Friday’s launch culminated a long year of designing, building and testing Sabre 1.
When the moment finally came, “we all watched a textbook flight,” McPherson said. The parachutes gently landed the rocket in the high desert.
“Our recovery team made the 4-mile walk out and back in the rain through the increasingly muddy desert to return with Sabre 1 intact and big grins on their faces,” he said.
The team, competing in a 10,000-foot category, wasn’t among the winners, but for its first outing as a UVA Experiential Learning Program competitive team, New Mexico was an unqualified success.
Sabre 1 By the Numbers
Rocket Specs
Height – 11.3 ft.
Diameter – 6 in.
Launch mass 65.69 lbs.
Motor diameter – 98mm
Motor – Aerotech M2500
Airframe – G12 fiberglass
Fins – Carbon-fiber reinforced G10 fiberglass
Flight Data
Apogee (maximum altitude) – 8,013 ft.
Maximum speed – Mach 0.84 (645 mph)
Flight duration – 164 seconds
The Flight Path to New Mexico
Read about UVA Rocketry’s journey to the New Mexico desert by way of a farm field in Virginia.
Photo Gallery
More than 120 U.S. and international teams participated in the 2024 Spaceport America Cup, the world’s largest collegiate rocketry competition. (Experimental Sounding Rocket Association)
Loading Sabre 1 and raising the launch tower. (Mike McPherson)
Using Sabre 1’s onboard GPS, the team’s recovery crew walked 4 miles round trip in the rainy desert to retrieve the rocket, undamaged after its successful launch and landing. (Mike McPherson)
Driving Sabre 1 to the launch pad. (Emma Lubeshkoff)
The launch crew with Sabre 1 at the launch pad. (Mike McPherson)
Sabre 1 leaves the tower. (Mike McPherson)
The students rented a house with a garage for the week to have room to work on Sabre 1. (Photo courtesy of Edison Wong)
UVA Rocketry president Daniel Tohti describes the UVA team’s design approach to competition judges. (Mike McPherson)
The team got to work before the sun was fully up. Jijun Wang holds lights for Edison Wong as he wires the rocket’s electronic instruments. (Mike McPherson)