The Base 11 Space Challenge, which has a launch prize of US$1 million, has completed the critical design review with the Concordia University team finishing first and the University of British Columbia team finishing third. It is a remarkable achievement.
The Base 11 Space Challenge is a student-led university competition where teams must design, build and launch a liquid-propelled, single-stage rocket to an altitude of 100 km (the Karman Line edge of space).
89 teams expressed interest, and 19 teams were fully registered. 11 teams made it to Phase 2, the critical design review. Yesterday the winners of Phase 2 were announced. Finishing first was Space Concordia, University of Concordia followed by MASA, University of Michigan, and UBC Rocket, University of British Columbia. Another three university teams remain in the competition; HALE, Oregon State University; PSAS, University of Portland; and TREL, University of Texas at Austin.
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc with the schedule for the competition. A launch window for teams to was to have opened up in May. That window has been cancelled. The next and last scheduled launch window is in December. In theory, the competition is supposed to wrap up by December 31 of this year. It’s unknown at this time if the competition will need to be extended due to the pandemic. By June 18th, the remaining teams must submit their Phase 3 launch readiness report.
There was no prize money for Phase 2. There was for Phase 1, the preliminary design review, which saw Space Concordia finish 2nd and take home US$15,000. Finishing first in Phase 1 was the University of Michigan who took home US$25,000 and finishing 3rd was Portland State University who took home US$10,000.
Adam Trumpour a member of the competitions Safety Council told SpaceQ that this “was an amazing showing. It’s wild when you think that one of the closest parallels for this in Canada was the Black Brant sounding rocket, developed in the 50’s by Bristol Aerospace and the predecessor of DRDC. What the students are developing is on a similar scale, but more complex and more technologically relevant to the modern space industry. And I guarantee the students haven’t spent anything close to what it took to develop Black Brant. Short of putting a student in orbit, it’s hard to think of a more impressive accomplishment than what they’re working towards!”
Regardless of whether a Canadian team wins the rocketry competition, the continued ongoing excellent showing by Canadian universities demonstrates that rocketry and other space disciplines at the university level are gaining momentum. This bodes well for Canada’s future workforce and space endeavours.