The Sun City Summit rocket team from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) won first place in the Lone Star Cup university competition, held in Seymour, Texas. The event brought together a dozen universities from across the state, including Texas A&M, Texas Tech University and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The competition, focused on rocket engineering, awards a single prize: the Barrowman, given to the team whose rocket comes closest to its simulated altitude. UTEP’s rocket, called ‘Prometheus’, reached 6,110 feet, just 10 feet above its predicted altitude of 6,100.
Pedro Ferreira Da Silva, a master’s student in aerospace engineering and project manager, explained that these types of competitions represent an opportunity to apply technical knowledge in a practical and collaborative environment. The team is made up of more than 100 students from different disciplines, including aerospace engineering, mechanics, computer science, finance and physics.
Since its inception in 2021, the Sun City Summit Rocket Team has participated in various competitions. Its previous best result had been a 29th place finish in the Spaceport America Cup, which brings together more than 150 university teams internationally.
The team receives advice from professors such as Jaeyoung Cho, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, who highlighted the students’ effort to coordinate a multidisciplinary project of this type.
With the victory in the Lone Star Cup, the team plans to compete in the International Rocketry Engineering Competition, scheduled for June 9-14 in Midland and Saragosa, Texas, where universities from all over the United States and other countries will participate.
