*EDITOR’S NOTE: Results of Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition at bottom.

Using the same type of fuel as a spaceship, a rocket built by UW graduate students will be able to reach the speed of sound in roughly three seconds.

The 10-foot, 8-inch rocket was designed and built by a team of 11 graduate students and four professors from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The team has been working on the project for the past two quarters to compete in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), which will take place June 25 and 26 in Utah.

Adam Bruckner, one of the professors who worked on the rocket, said the competition is based on precision, not power. The rocket must come as close to 10,000 feet above ground level as possible — roughly 2 miles — and then must be recovered by the team in a fully reusable condition.

The on-board altimeter will be responsible for providing proof of altitude. The team also equipped the rocket with a GPS system, a beacon, a video camera, a flight computer, a radio communication system and a computerized control system, which works in conjunction with the active control energy system (ACES).

“As you can see, it is quite complicated,” Bruckner said.

The power of the rocket should have enough propulsion to go well beyond the desired altitude. The ACES will measure the altitude and speed and then deploy the air brakes to stop at the contest’s prescribed height.

“After the motor burns out, we have electronics on board to determine how fast we’re going and what altitude we’re at, and then the air-brakes can be deployed,” said Ryan Trescott, a graduate student who worked on creating the braking-system.

The UW team constructed the entire vessel with the exception of the motor and fiberglass body. These were purchased due to safety and time constraints; constructing a motor means handling multiple hazardous materials. Bruckner didn’t want the team dealing with the potentially harmful substances required to produce the 6,000 pounds of thrust.

The team originally planned on fabricating the carbon fiber body but that proved to be too difficult and expensive, so they purchased a fiberglass body instead.

“We’ve spent about $7,000 so far,” said Derek Schmuland, a graduate student who worked on the recovery system.

Bruckner set the total budget at $10,000 back when the project began. The remaining $3,000 will be spent on travel and housing expenses for the competition.

“We are doing this all with a gift from GenCorp,” Bruckner said. “They are the parent company of Aerojet, which is a famous rocket company from way back. [They] have been very supportive of our efforts in doing space-systems-type work … and are very interested in promoting instruction in space-systems and rocketry.”

This is the fourth annual IREC being sponsored by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association. The UW team will compete against the University of Iowa, Brigham Young University, Arizona State, Cal State University of Long Beach and Seattle Central Community College.

The prize being offered for the winning team isn’t much: $250 in cash and a plaque. But the UW team isn’t in the competition for the payout, they’re in it for the experience. The team has already achieved a sense of accomplishment due to the long hours and amount of effort they have put in to the project.

“The last week has been 12 to 16 hour days,” said Bhuvana Srinivasan, a student who worked on the rocket. “It’s going to be great.”

Srinivasan sees the competition as an opportunity to meet and connect with other engineer students around the country.

“One way or another, there are going to be a lot of rocket geeks out there,” Srinivasan said. “We’ve never built anything this large scale before.”

Reach reporter Adam Magnoni at news@dailyuw.com.

*The UW team placed second in the competition, overshooting the 10,000 mark and reaching an altitude of 12,500 feet. First place went to California State University in Long Beach, whose rocket reached a more precise altitude of 8,200 feet. The UW team also took home the Jim Furtaro Award for Technical Excellence for its rocket’s quality of design.