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Three University of Virginia students hoisted the rocket onto their shoulders and strode toward the launch pad. As the trio passed, onlookers gawked.

“Oh my god,” one muttered.

A smattering of applause rose from the dusty clay grounds of the Tripoli Central Virginia’s BattlePark launch area. Until this moment, the rockets shooshing into the striking blue sky were of the hobby variety, none taller than a yardstick. They zipped a few hundred feet into the air before popping their parachutes and floating to Earth.

Some drifted into rows of parked cars like foul balls at a baseball game.

But the �鶹�ƽ�� Sabre III looked more like a missile. Standing taller than a basketball goal and as big around as a roll of paper towels, Sabre III was the first of the large rockets to launch Saturday in Culpeper. Its powerful motor would, in a blink, blast the behemoth to more than 3,000 feet, less than a third of its capability.

It would be the final test launch for a group of students from the School of Engineering and Applied Science before they travel to Texas to .

A voice boomed through the PA system.

“Five, four, three, two, one …”

From dormancy to global sensation

The Engineering School’s rocketry team largely disbanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Anne Marie Branch arrived in Charlottesville four years ago as a first-year student, the group was just starting to reform.

Engineering students Anderson Garner, Edison Wong and Jameson Phelps hoist the Sabre III rocket onto their shoulders for the walk to launch control. (Photo by Mike Mather, University Communications)

That first year, the team won a small, regional competition. The members set their sights on a bigger goal: the International Rocket Engineering Competition, or IREC, in Midland, Texas. There, in the team’s second year, the Cavaliers placed in the top half of the competition.

But last year, the UVA team pulled off a stunner.

Competing against more than 140 student teams from the U.S. and around the globe, the squad took first place in the “10K COTS” division. The contest goal was to launch a rocket as close as possible to 10,000 feet using a commercial-off-the-shelf, or COTS, motor

Garner fits the airbrake computer into the rocket. In the upcoming international competition, the rocket’s onboard computer will sense when the craft is nearing the target altitude of 10,000 feet and will deploy the airbrakes to slow it down. (Photo by Mike Mather, University Communications)

Unlike a crewed NASA rocket, these smaller versions have no way to throttle up or down after the engine fires. It’s basically one-size-fits-all thrust, and the teams make rocket adjustments to hit the target height, or apogee.

“After we launched our rocket, we found out from the onboard altimeter that we had reached 10,019 feet,” Branch, now the team president, said. “And all of a sudden, there was a moment where everyone was like, ‘Whoa, we might actually win this.’ That was a really cool moment.”

After returning home, they noticed a surge in traffic to the team’s website. College students here and abroad were searching for the secret sauce that helped relative newcomers win the Super Bowl of rocketry, besting the country’s top engineering schools.

Branch admitted in a recent interview that some good fortune was involved. At �鶹�ƽ�� launch time, the swirling Texas wind went still. The atmospheric pressure was perfect. In other words, they hit the button at the best possible time, and the engineering did the rest.

“We were lucky that the time we launched, it was ideal,” Branch said.

This year, as defending champions, they’re not going to count on such a chance. The new rocket has two main modifications: a sleeker design to soar beyond 10,000 feet while using the same engines, and computer-controlled airbrakes to slow the ascent near the target altitude.

That means, at the international competition, the rocket should still hit the mark, even if the weather isn’t so forgiving.

Anderson Wu, left, Phelps, center, and Olivia MacKenzie prepare an avionics bay that will connect to the system that deploys the rocket’s parachute. The rocket, once out of thrust, is designed to fall nearly back to earth before the parachute emerges at 1,000 feet. (Photo by Mike Mather, University Communications)

First airbrake test

The Engineering School’s rocketry squad, now roughly 60 members strong, consists of several smaller teams overseeing specific tasks, including construction, software, onboard computers, the altimeter and the system that deploys the parachute.

Many, like Branch, have plans to pursue rocket science after graduation. This kind of practical engineering in college – especially being part of a team – is particularly attractive to employers, Branch has learned. As an aerospace engineering major graduating in May, Branch has turned an internship with the U.S. Navy into a full-time job as a civilian engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, but she won’t start work until after the June IREC contest.

Her dream job would be flying through space to live and work on a lunar base.

On Saturday, back on Earth, a pair of students installed four carbon fiber flaps that hugged the rocket’s fiberglass body. In the Texas contest, a computer will sense the rocket’s speed, compare it to its altitude, and decide when to extend the flaps. If all goes as planned, the rocket will lose its energy at 10,000 feet and then tumble toward the ground. At 1,000 feet, a signal from the flight computer will deploy the rocket’s main parachute.

Saturday’s goal was more modest: to deploy the untested airbrakes and examine the trove of performance data the computers capture. However, if the flaps extend unevenly, the rocket could spiral out of control.

“It’s a new part of the rocket,” Branch said. “There are a lot of different things that could go wrong with it.”

Liftoff

With an ear-splitting “fwooosh,” the craft rocketed into the sky. Then, more than a half mile up and out of momentum, it began tumbling to the ground.

“When does the parachute deploy?” one student asked, nervously.

“At 1,000 feet,” another responded.