As the annual University Student Launch Initiative competition this weekend in Huntsville, Ala. approaches, the Mississippi State Space Cowboys rocket design team is gearing up for competition.
The USLI, sponsored by NASA, is an eight-month competition that challenges college-level students to design, construct and launch a rocket with a scientific payload to a certain altitude above ground.
Tim McGrath, sophomore aerospace engineering major, said NASA creates guidelines each year the teams must comply with during production. This year, the rocket must reach one mile in altitude and include special equipment such as sensors, scopes and a camera.
“Teams are also judged on a scientific payload that is outside of what NASA typically prescribes,” McGrath said. “This year we have a relay system. It’s essentially an extendible arm that once the rocket lands, it extends an arm five to six feet in the air and it has a radio transmitter that allows us to live feed to the ground station where we are controlling the rocket.”
McGrath also said the team is experimenting on a new rocketry technology called an aerospike.
“Most people consider rockets and missiles to be aerodynamic because they have a cone shape,” he said. “One of the technologies we have been pioneering over the years, with the help of our faculty adviser, is an aerospike; which is really a blunt body, like a wooden cylinder, that sits on top of the rocket.”
McGrath also said the fixture receives air molecules in the top of the cylinder and gives a similar aerodynamic effect as a traditional cone shape.
“One of the cool things is that it’s extendable. We actually have a long rod, adjustable depending upon the velocity of the rocket,” McGrath said. “We can change the aerodynamics of the rocket depending on the speed. This is really important because we’re breaking the speed of sound.”
The team has worked since August on its rocket. Outside of design, teams are required to submit preliminary reviews and reports of their designs to NASA. The project also requires flight and launch reviews before rockets are approved to launch.
Blair Schumacher, junior aerospace engineering major, said the competition is more than the launch, and the reports are an intricate part of the process as well.
“The competition is only partially about the launch. It’s more about the process leading up to it,” she said. “We’re getting ready to make sure all our components are tested and that’s really big for NASA. They want to make sure that we have made sure all of our subsystems are tested and each payload is tested before we launch.”
Keith Koenig, aerospace professor and adviser to the Space Cowboys, said the reviews and reports keep the team on track with deadlines leading up to the competition.
“Each review requires an oral presentation to NASA people and then also a written report. That organizes the program and motivates the students to keep pressing forward,” he said. “At this point, we’re finalizing details.”
Koenig also said another element to the competition requires participation in educational outreach activity. Last month, the Space Cowboys hosted Mississippi Space Week where the team went to various schools around the state to give presentations and demonstrations to students.
“We aren’t just a rocket team; we have a lot of educational activities that we care about as well,” McGrath said. “Space Week allows us that one week where we can specialize a lot more on the kids.”
The team traveled to middle and high schools to teach students about rocketry, NASA and space. The Space Cowboys have also created educational videos as part of a creative way to reach a larger audience.
“We’ve created these kids videos around this puppet named Goddard and one of our old members we nicknamed Dr. Rocket. He and his puppet build these kits, and the kids watch them. The kids love them. It’s kind of like Sesame Street of rocketry,” McGrath said. “It was a different was to get out to the kids, and NASA is always encouraging us to try to pick new ways to reach out to our audience. This was something we went with that week and it was a phenomenal success.”
The competition includes over 30 teams this year. Last year, MSU placed second behind Utah State, and besides the EcoCar, team Space Cowboys was the only other team to place that high out of any engineering design team on campus.
 ”We’re beating teams like MIT, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Berkeley and Cal Poly. It’s definitely a lot of pride that we think we bring back to the Mississippi State community,” McGrath said. “We have a really historic aerospace department here and it’s well respected nationally.”