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  • We Have Liftoff: Aero at Baylor joins top aerospace teams at Spaceport America Cup

    // Posted In Academics, Student life

    Aero at Baylor students pose with their rocket

    Over the summer, aerospace teams from top national universities converged on the New Mexico desert for a competition that literally involves rocket science. Among them? Baylor’s Aerospace Engineering Club.

    It’s been a rapid rise for Aero at Baylor, a student organization that, after lying dormant for many years, reorganized in 2021. Featuring dozens of students from engineering and other STEM fields (such as physics and data science), Aero at Baylor introduces students to aerospace engineering through hands-on projects, real-world experience and friendly competition. The group is comprised of six teams with different skill sets that cover liquid rocket engines, 3D-printed planes and more.

    Already, Aero at Baylor has built a winning resume; the club’s 3D-printed plane team has earned three straight victories in the annual 3DPAC Competition, which includes opposing teams from schools such as Stanford and Virginia Tech. This year, Aero’s liquid rocket engine team members set their sights on the Spaceport America Cup, the world’s largest intercollegiate rocket engineering competition, pitting their rocket launching skills against 150+ teams from around the world.

    To succeed at the Spaceport America Cup, these Bears would need to build a rocket, launch it 10,000 feet in the air, track it, and bring it back safely down to earth. Plenty can go wrong along the way: motors catching fire, parachutes failing to deploy, etc. Failure during test launches means deconstructing each attempt, iterating new approaches, and then rebuilding.

    At the Spaceport America Cup, Aero at Baylor put together its most complete launch and recovery yet. Everything worked as intended, and the team took a giant leap forward in elevating the Baylor name among aerospace students.

    “Seeing the rocket come back down was pretty incredible,” says Ishaan Patel, a senior engineering major from San Diego. “We’d seen it go up before, but seeing the parachutes was what we were really going for. When we saw the second deploy, it was such a great feeling to realize, ‘Yeah, we did it.’”

    Next up for the team: continued growth. Aero at Baylor expands each year, as students are drawn by the thrill of flight, the discipline of discovery and competition, and the possibility of perhaps bringing a few more trophies Baylor’s way — all as they develop as engineers, ready for launch long after they’re done on campus.

    Sic ’em, Aero at Baylor!