USU Rocket Team accepts $5,000 Winner's Check

Representatives from ATK recently presented a $5,000 check to Utah State University’s Chimaera rocket team – one of the perks of winning the grand prize at NASA’s University Student Launch Initiative competition in April.

 

The check was presented prior to the scheduled Ares rocket test fire on Aug. 27. Team members had VIP seating for the test fire, which was ultimately scrubbed due to technical concerns at the twenty second mark. The reschedule date for the launch has not yet been definitively set. As grand-prize winners, the USU team also received an invitation from NASA to attend a space shuttle launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in fall 2009.

 

The USU rocket team won the grand prize in Huntsville, Ala., for the second year in a row, beating 18 other teams, including Arizona State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt University, Florida Institute of Technology and Alabama A&M University.

 

 The College of Engineering's 27-member team of graduate and undergraduate students, including faculty mentor Dr. Stephen Whitmore and graduate student instructor Shannon Eilers, spent about 10,000 hours designing, building and testing their rocket.  

 

 The team designed and built the rocket while working closely with NASA scientists and engineers, giving them the opportunity for first-hand, real-world engineering experience.

 

“It was amazing to see the level of talent that participated in the competition,” said Jim Halsell, ATK Space Systems vice president, Space Exploration Systems and former NASA astronaut. “If these students pursue careers in engineering and science, America will have a tremendous future in space exploration as we return to the Moon and journey out into the far reaches of the solar system.”

 

The USU team members are: AmyJo Bowdidge, Corrdell Wright, Stanford Rosen, Marc Loertscher, Shaun Copeland, Aaron Shields, Alex Wouden, Bryce Nash, Heather Williams, Jed Butler, Jessica Anderson, Justin Christensen, Justin Teuscher, Kyle Jeppson, Luke Hanks, Matthew Wilson, Michael Tolman, Paul Lyon, Nickolus McKee, Yutaka Fujiwara, Zach Peterson, Peter Santerre, Jacob Brown, Mike Phillips, Shane Robinson, Nate Lodder and Bowen Masco. The USU team is led by USU graduate student Shannon Eilers and faculty advisor Stephen Whitmore.

 

Whitmore praised this year’s team and took time to look back on the efforts of last year’s award-winning first-place team.

 

“One of the keys to this year's success is that last year's team left a well-documented legacy for this year's team to build on,” Whitmore said. “And this year's team, to their credit, took advantage of that legacy.”

 

USU’s team received honors in April at the post-launch banquet for “Best Vehicle Design,” for  the most creative and innovative overall vehicle design while still maximizing safety and efficiency; and the “Project Review Award” (also called the Best Overall Documentation and Presentation Award), for the best combination of written design and flight readiness reviews and formal presentations.

 

“These wins give the USU engineering program tremendous exposure on a national stage,” Whitmore said. “At the competition, and afterwards at the awards ceremony, there wasn’t a person involved who mixed up who the rocket experts in Utah are — Utah State University — and they all put that ‘State’ part in the name!”