dr wogz
Fly caster
I had a l-o-o-o-n-g talk with Adam a few months ago. He is quite passionate about rocketry (the real stuff, not the "toys" we play with) and is an avid liquid fuel motor collector.
The contest has morphed into a pretty sophisticated set of events & technical criteria. This isn't a simple "design a rocket, launch with X motor, and achieve [event] with a payload" task, but involves the propulsion system. This is proper "rocket science": payloads, mach+ speeds, liquid fuel, etc.. The idea is to keep our top-tier graduates here in Canada!!
their Facebook page is a better / more up-to-date place to start. they have 20 teams signed up.
I have not yet signed up to be a mentor, as after the conversation I had with Adam, I feel like I'm an 8yr old with an Estes Goblin talking to NASA people!! [severely under-knowledgeable]
an excerpt from the e-mail I received from Adam:
The big challenge - and reason why Launch Canada exists - is there has been a massive surge of interest in rocketry in Canada over the last several years, particularly among students, but few opportunities to run with it here. The Spaceport America Cup, and its predecessor the IREC, is largely why they exist: it was the first time Canadian students with an interest in advanced rocketry had an obvious path to pursue it. One of the real strengths of that competition has been its flexibility. It allows 10 000 foot flights with off-the-shelf solid motors which provides a reasonable "entry level" for new teams, but it also accommodates higher altitudes, and student-build solids, hybrids and liquids, for the more ambitious teams. And the Canadians have consistently been dominating at that competition: at the Cup two years ago, the Canadian schools made up about 10% of the teams but won 75% of the awards, including first overall.
At this point, at least half of the Canadian teams have progressed into advanced hybrid and liquid projects, or are starting to, and targeting altitudes of 50 000 feet or greater. Unfortunately for those teams, they've had no outlet to be able to fly in Canada. While Tripoli allows EX solids and hybrids at some of their launches, CAR does not and hasn't shown much interest in changing that. And none of the HPR organizations allow liquids, nor do they generally have the expertise to be able to approach such projects safely.
But the rise of student rocketry has been accompanying another new trend in Canada, with a newfound openness to the idea of Canadian orbital launch capabilities. Apart from the Maritime Launch Services spaceport, there are now several Canadian launch vehicle startups, and every one of them exists because of student rocket teams: they are either founded by former rocket team members, or else hire almost exclusively from among rocketry students, or both. So while they are fun projects for the students, in many cases they're actually a springboard for much bigger things. Increasingly, student rocketry is covering a very wide spectrum from HPR to professional aerospace.
It was the "higher end" of that spectrum that particularly motivated the creation of Launch Canada: there are options for people to pursue "typical" HPR in Canada (though not as much as we might like), but there's nothing for those pushing the upper limits with hybrids or liquids. Of course, the difficulty is that while CAR and its affiliates have often been able to support student HPR launches with off-the-shelf motors, student-built hybrids and (especially) liquids have been another story. That's where the big challenge has been.
The contest has morphed into a pretty sophisticated set of events & technical criteria. This isn't a simple "design a rocket, launch with X motor, and achieve [event] with a payload" task, but involves the propulsion system. This is proper "rocket science": payloads, mach+ speeds, liquid fuel, etc.. The idea is to keep our top-tier graduates here in Canada!!
their Facebook page is a better / more up-to-date place to start. they have 20 teams signed up.
I have not yet signed up to be a mentor, as after the conversation I had with Adam, I feel like I'm an 8yr old with an Estes Goblin talking to NASA people!! [severely under-knowledgeable]
an excerpt from the e-mail I received from Adam:
The big challenge - and reason why Launch Canada exists - is there has been a massive surge of interest in rocketry in Canada over the last several years, particularly among students, but few opportunities to run with it here. The Spaceport America Cup, and its predecessor the IREC, is largely why they exist: it was the first time Canadian students with an interest in advanced rocketry had an obvious path to pursue it. One of the real strengths of that competition has been its flexibility. It allows 10 000 foot flights with off-the-shelf solid motors which provides a reasonable "entry level" for new teams, but it also accommodates higher altitudes, and student-build solids, hybrids and liquids, for the more ambitious teams. And the Canadians have consistently been dominating at that competition: at the Cup two years ago, the Canadian schools made up about 10% of the teams but won 75% of the awards, including first overall.
At this point, at least half of the Canadian teams have progressed into advanced hybrid and liquid projects, or are starting to, and targeting altitudes of 50 000 feet or greater. Unfortunately for those teams, they've had no outlet to be able to fly in Canada. While Tripoli allows EX solids and hybrids at some of their launches, CAR does not and hasn't shown much interest in changing that. And none of the HPR organizations allow liquids, nor do they generally have the expertise to be able to approach such projects safely.
But the rise of student rocketry has been accompanying another new trend in Canada, with a newfound openness to the idea of Canadian orbital launch capabilities. Apart from the Maritime Launch Services spaceport, there are now several Canadian launch vehicle startups, and every one of them exists because of student rocket teams: they are either founded by former rocket team members, or else hire almost exclusively from among rocketry students, or both. So while they are fun projects for the students, in many cases they're actually a springboard for much bigger things. Increasingly, student rocketry is covering a very wide spectrum from HPR to professional aerospace.
It was the "higher end" of that spectrum that particularly motivated the creation of Launch Canada: there are options for people to pursue "typical" HPR in Canada (though not as much as we might like), but there's nothing for those pushing the upper limits with hybrids or liquids. Of course, the difficulty is that while CAR and its affiliates have often been able to support student HPR launches with off-the-shelf motors, student-built hybrids and (especially) liquids have been another story. That's where the big challenge has been.
