Link to story: https://in.nau.edu/nasa-spacegrant/nau-rocketclub/

We are pleased to announce that the Northern Arizona University (NAU) Space Jacks team comprised of ME students from the Rocket Club and American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) took 1st place overall this weekend in the First Nations Launch Competition in Kenosha, WI. Over the past academic year, students designed, modeled, built, tested and successfully launched and recovered a high-powered rocket coupled with a Cold Gas Thruster System (CGTS) payload system. The CGTS was the design challenge and had to control the rockets z-axis angular velocity during the coast phase of its ascent.

Over this past academic year, students wrote several reports totaling several hundred pages and presented five times to a panel of NASA and aerospace judges. Some of the participating universities this year in the upper division included: University of California Davis, University of North Carolina Pembroke, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Hawai’i Manoa, Queens University, Navajo Technical University, Fort Lewis College, and University of Washington, Seattle.

Awards that the NAU Space Jacks team received include:

• 1st place OVERALL
• 1st place in oral presentations
• 2nd place in written reports

This includes a grand prize of $3,000 and an invitation and travel stipend for a VIP tour at the Kennedy Space Center this summer. Furthermore, our team also received a Next Step Award for the upcoming academic year.

NAU will receive $15,000 in funding support to participate in the NASA Student Launch Initiative in Huntsville, AL in April 2023!

This year’s core team includes: Dawson Pursell (overall team lead), Hy Rillero (capstone team lead), Adrian Tran, Andrew King, Valentin Gamez, Daniel Colley, Sharon Toenjes, Jeffrey Yows, Samual Maxwell, Nathans Collins, Adam Winters, Corey Boyce, Tyler Rodriquez, and Austin Paothatat.

Congratulations! Go NAU Space Jacks Team! The hard work you have put into this project has paid off!