Launch Reports

Returning to Spaceport America’s 30,000 ft challenge, Miner’s Lady made her debut in the desert. Building on the strengths of 2023’s Blue Ridge Blazer, which had to be scaled back to the 10,000 ft category, Miner’s Lady returned WVUER to the 30k category with several new innovative designs. From the top of the rocket all the way to the bottom, nearly every component was scratch-built using all the tools available to WVUER, the most notable of which was the airframe. Having tested filament-wound airframe tubes on Blue Ridge Blazer, the technology was fully integrated into Miner’s Lady, with a sleek carbon fiber booster section and fiberglass upper section. Attached to the booster were fins with an unusual shape inspired by the Standard Missile series designed to reduce torque loading on the fins. With fiberglass spars, honeycomb filling, and four layers of carbon fiber support, the fins were ready to take any supersonic force they encountered. The rocket was propelled by a fully student researched and designed (SRAD) O3800 solid rocket motor using the NASSA Yellow propellant. The rocket also carried a payload called Torricelli which was to measure the pressure profile of the nose cone and compare it to a computational fluid dynamics simulation of the rocket’s flight.

Just a few months prior to Spaceport, Miner’s Lady flew above Argonia, Kansas in a test flight that successfully demonstrated the subsystems of the rocket working together. After a triumphant flight, the WVUER team came into New Mexico in June confident with their work. The rocket was quickly assembled and prepared for launch in the desert. The team was eager to launch as soon as possible, but through a combination of technical difficulties and poor weather, a chance to launch was not available until the very last day of the competition. Having waited three whole days to launch, the rocket was placed on the launch rails, and the time to launch had come at last. The countdown was given, and on zero, Miner’s Lady was lifted into the air by a roaring motor with a bright yellow flame, on its way to pierce the sky.

Blazing through the desert with the bluest rocket of them all: Blue Ridge Blazer.

     A love for the project, a need for competition, and a driven passion. WVUER (West Virginia University Experimental Rocketry) participated in the 15th annual Spaceport America Cup with their 30,000ft Student Researched and Designed rocket Appalachian Sunset and Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge ScatterSat. The competition team traveled out to Las Cruces, New Mexico for the 7 day competition. The team and rocket was to be evaluated on their project, presentation of the rocket’s information, and overall performance of the system to be ranked within their own category, and ranked among 99 other teams from 24 countries. 

     Typical weather conditions in Las Cruces are mostly sunny and warm with a side of chilly nights. In an unusual weather occurrence, Las Cruces saw a slight increase in rain come through the week of the competition than it has seen in the past for June. The first allowable day of flights, Tuesday, June 21st, was washed out due to the rain turning the vertical launch area (VLA) into a muddy slip and slide. Instead of turning the day into a complete loss, the team was able to finish the rocket’s flight safety review of the motor at the horizontal launch area (HLA) with ESRA judges, finish up last minute changes to the rocket, and go through the preflight and motor checklists to make sure all information was written out to avoid missing steps and allow for learning from the scheduled 2022 Kansas test flight.