Santa Fe College Places 16th in NASA Competition; Presentation Today

June 19, 2012

During the past year, the Santa Fe College Engineering Club built and launched a rocket as part of NASA's University Student Launch Initiative (USLI), a competition that challenges university-level students to design, construct and launch a reusable rocket with a scientific or engineering payload.

Tomorrow, June 19, from 11 a.m.- noon, the Engineering Club will host a presentation in the Lobby of the Lawrence W. Tyree Library on Santa Fe's Northwest campus, 300 NW 83 St. The discussion will include topics such as the construction of the rocket, the USLI process and how Santa Fe students can get involved.

"The USLI program provides a simulation of a real-life space exploration program such as Congress might fund, NASA might administer, and for which aerospace companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Raytheon or others might compete," said Jimmy Yawn the team's official rocket mentor and Coordinator of SF's Career Resource Center.

During the presentation, Christopher Beck, Vice President of the SF Engineering Club, will describe the USLI project, the process and the rocket – how it is built, what it was built to do and how well it performed.

The SF Engineering Club was one of 41 teams that competed in this year's USLI competition, blasting off their rocket in Huntsville, Ala. in April where they faced teams from such schools as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Florida.

"In the final analysis, we ranked 16th out of the 41 schools in the USLI competition this year," said Yawn. "Santa Fe will continue this successful program, with the goal of achieving a 'top ten' ranking next year."

The Santa Fe rocket, nicknamed Moby Dick, is on display in the library lobby through Friday, June 22. The presentation today is free and open to the public.