WVU Experimental Rocketry

West Virginia University Experimental Rocketry welcomes students from any and all majors! We'll teach you everything you need to know about rockets from square one, so you can find what you enjoy most and participate in the aspects of the team that interest you!

A Special Thanks to the

Lewis Family Fund for MMAE Experiential Learning

WVU's MMAE Department appreciates your contribution!

WVUER's Miner's Lady

Spaceport America Cup 2024

Miner's Lady returned WVUER to the 30,000-foot category, highlighting on the strengths of Blue Ridge Blazer in 2023. Nearly every component of Miner's Lady was scratch built using tools available to the club, with the most notable aspects being the unusual fins and filament-wound tubes. The payload for this competition featured Torricelli, an experiment based around measuring the pressure profile around the nose cone and comparing it to computer simulations. Miner's Lady had two flights, one in Argonia, Kansas as a test flight, and her competition flight at Spaceport America. The club is now working towards improving Miner's Lady's design and further establishing a foothold in student design and development.

WVUER with Blue Ridge Blazer

Spaceport America Cup 2023

During the 2022-2023 academic year, 156 teams from around the world participated in the Spaceport America Cup for the competition’s 16th competition year. West Virginia University’s Experimental Rocketry Team participated in the 10,000-foot Student Research and Developed (SRAD) Solid Fueled category and introduced the club’s first iteration of fiberglass composite wound tubes with the use of an X-Winder sponsored by Material and CADWind. This achievement marked the team’s first steps towards being almost completely SRAD.

Read the full 2023 launch report

From Left: (Top Row) Corey Kinder, Michael Farha, Sam Bartle, Dr. Patrick Browning, Cameron Spaeth
(Bottom Row) Charley Howard, Brady Davidson, Nathan Bonafield, Paislee Adlington, Elizabeth Breckenridge, Noah Trimmer, Ben Renninger, Mitchell Lisk

WVUER Returns to the Spaceport America Cup

Team members pose in front of Appalachian Sunset shortly before its successful flight at the 2022 Spaceport America Cup

After a 3 year hiatus, teams were once again welcomed back to the New Mexico desert to compete in the 2022 Spaceport America Cup. West Virginia University’s Experimental Rocketry team was highly successful, earing 1st place in the 30,000 foot Student Researched and Designed Solid Fueled category and 2nd in the SDL Payload competition. This achievement marked the team's first successful 30,000 foot competition flight, as well as its first fully functional scientific payload deployment.

Read full Launch Report

Watch Appalachian Sunset's historic flight

From Left:

(Top Row) Elizabeth Breckenridge, Paislee Adlington

(Bottom Row) Dr. Patrick Browning, Matteo Cerasoli, Corey Kinder, Tucker Johnson, Annette Straziuso, Noah Trimmer, Michael Borkoski, Joseph Shepard, Charley Howard

WVU Finishes Second in Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition

rocketry team members and winning rocket

West Virginia University’s Experimental Rocketry team overcame near catastrophic setbacks to capture second place in the 10,000 foot-launch category at the second annual Spaceport America Cup.

WVUER Free Bird for Spaceport America Cup 2018

Wondering what it takes to build and launch a competition-class rocket? Check out this awesome video made by Ernie Marsh documenting the design, construction, motor testing, and flight of "Free Bird"! The team's 2018 entry for the Spaceport America Cup 30k SRAD competition!

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