BYU gets on podium three times at world's biggest rocket competition.
The BYU Rocketry Team is literally having a blast.
Last year the group of engineering students won the world’s largest collegiate rocket competition for the first time in history. This year they decided they liked winning so much, they found themselves on the podium three times.
“The long evenings that turned into early mornings before the competition, and the pre-dawn final preparations paid off,” said faculty mentor David Fullwood. “It was a dazzling two-minute display of first-class engineering.”
BYU’s team and their Utah-inspired rocket named “Alta” took 1st place in the payload challenge — shooting a 4.3-kilogram, gravity-optional 3D printer more than 10,000 feet into the sky — and 2nd place in the category of 10,000 feet commercial off the shelf rockets. They also won 1st place for best team video.
More than 150 teams from 20 countries competed in the Spaceport America Cup, with 83 of those teams competing in the largest category alongside BYU. That means BYU’s team of 12 students joined nearly 2000 rocketry students and faculty for five days in the New Mexico desert launching rockets built over the course of the past year.
“It’s kind of a surreal experience to have the culmination of a year’s worth of work last 30 minutes or so,” said team lead Nathan Butler. “But then to hear our names called as winners… Those were definitely proud moments.”
The first-prize winning 3D printer payload, built by BYU Rocketry teammates Taylor Anderton and Spencer Stowell, is able to print in any direction, and, most importantly, prints in zero gravity. The printer could be useful in space manufacturing, particularly for humans aboard a rocket.
“Being able to finally see the rocket that we’ve been working on for a year work the way that we wanted, with all the parts working together, was phenomenal," said team member Haylee Sevy. "The launch worked out perfectly and the recovery was as good as it could have been.”
Joining Butler on the 2024 BYU Rocketry Team were Josh Taylor, Sevy and Barry Creighton on structures; Stowell, Anderton and Casey Gooch on payload; Zach Lyman, Aidan Rice and Gabe Slade on guidance, navigation and control; and Brad Hornfischer and Tyson Butterfield on systems.
Following the competition, several BYU team members have been offered jobs and have been invited to conferences. One such conference is the Small Satellite Conference in Logan next month. The payload team has been offered a grant to attend and hopes to expand their social and intellectual network through the conference.
