Spaceport America Cup and the 2017 IREC

9/25/2016

Yes!! There will be another IREC in 2017. ESRA has been working with Spaceport America in New Mexico to team up and offer colleges and industry an even better opportunity to collaborate and compete. Starting next year IREC will become part of a brand new event call the Spaceport America Cup (SAC or SA Cup).

The Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition will be the main event at this year's Spaceport America Cup. There are plans to build on the SA Cup, and add not only more college level events, but events for industry and even high schools. This being our first year of hosting the SA Cup with the Spaceport America crew, we will be focusing on the IREC portion. But rest assured, there will be great new things coming in 2018 as we start to grow.

For more information, visit the Spaceport America Cup Event website or the 2017 IREC page here on the ESRA website.

2 Comments

Terry Robinson

7/6/2017 06:39:24 pm

After attending the IREC competition of 2017 at Spaceport America, I had these thoughts ( I am a 69 yo MD who attended with my son on the BYU Provo team):

1. It might be worthwhile to see if White Sands might support next year's competition with radar technology, and possibly a launch of their own (unarmed) rocket. In high school my astronomy club launched a balloon across Lake Michigan and the Naval radar station tracked it for us
2. As a physician, I was quite concerned about the 2nd stage motor that fell near the crowd. A serious injury would probably ban the activity in the future. Could radar have spotted that and given warning?
3. The emergency medical personnel were impressive.
4. Should there be a crew of spotters with access to mikes?
5. Guidance provided by lessons learned in the past, in the form of web site postings, might be helpful. A major problem was ignition! The basics of igniters would have been helpful information, for example. Tips on keeping cool would also be worthwhile.
6. Fabulous experience for everyone! Keep it up!

Lee Williams

9/14/2017 04:38:35 pm

Now is not the time to quit. Space is an expensive business. SSNM is only asking $1 million instead of $340,000 form New Mexico. That reasonable, actually that's less that I expected. Branson can only front so much,; it's NM' turn to finish what was started.

Actually it's a smart idea and quite doable. Work to fly 20 to 25 missions into low orbit and then look to new sponsors. The 2nd Generation of Aircraft should be very interesting. Probably capable of shot flight missions probably from NM to CA.

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Spaceport America Cup and the 2017 IREC

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