The Ascendance of Canadian University Rocketry

Canadian university rocketry teams are competing and achieving remarkable results in U.S. competitions. On this weeks episode of the Space Economy podcast I speak with two university rocketry team leaders to learn more.

My guests this week are Oleg Khalimonov, Chief Rocket Designer at Space Concordia and Nathan Van Rumpt, Project Manager at UBC Rocket.

Space Concordia and UBC Rocket are two of the university teams competing in the the Base 11 Space Challenge, an American competition where teams must design, build and launch a liquid-propelled, single-stage rocket to an altitude of 100 km by December 31st of this year. The prize for reaching this goal is a US$1 million.

Just under two weeks ago the competition announced the winners of the critical design review, the second to last milestone before an expected launch window opens in December at Spaceport America. In a competition heavy with Americans team, it was the Canadians how came in first and third in the critical design review with Concordia’s University Space Concordia taking first place, and the University of British Columbia’s UBC Rocket coming in third.

It is a remarkable achievement. Here’s my discussion with Nathan and Oleg.