Rocket fueled student competition reaches for the stars!

Students from across the UK came together for the second Race2Space competition, which concluded last Thursday (18 July) at the Student Rocket Engine Symposium at the Westcott Space Cluster.

The competition, which is organised by the University of Sheffield and supported by the UK Space Agency and the Buckinghamshire Enterprise Zone, ran from 4 to 18 July.

Race2Space is an educational initiative and national propulsion competition, aiming to boost the UK space sector by providing students with hands-on experience, designing and testing rocket propulsion hardware. It is the only event of its kind in the world, and this year doubled in size, involving 19 universities and over 200 undergraduates across the UK and Ireland.

University students hot-fired rocket engines they designed and built over a busy two weeks on test stands at Westcott Space Cluster, which is home to the National Space Propulsion Test Facility. The aim is to inspire students and give them the skills needed to join the space industry, which already employs around 50,000 people.

The winners of best performing engine in the competition, presented by Countess Howe, His Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, were Sheffield University, with their engine successfully hot-firing 5 times in one day and producing a maximum thrust of 4.8kN.

Prizes were also awarded to Kingston (best team spirit), Nottingham (best newcomer), Edinburgh (winning bi-prop team) and Cranfield (winning hybrid team).

In total, 31 test-fires of student rocket engines were carried out, which is unprecedented and likely to set a world record for the number of different rocket engines hot-fired on one site over two weeks. This is particularly noteworthy as up until early 2023 zero student-built liquid rocket engines had been tested in the UK.

The competition ended last Thursday with the Student Rocket Engine Symposium, hosted by The Satellite Applications Catapult - a space sector education networking event where academics, students and industry came together to see the results of the competition.

Alistair John, Founder of Race2Space, said: “Race2Space is about showing we have top class students who are willing, able and prepared to grow the space sector in the UK and we have more than proved that over the past two weeks.

“We know we have the talent but to compete on the world stage we need to increase the number of passionate, highly skilled graduates with hands-on skills entering the sector. This initiative is helping to provide the critical training and access to practical testing needed to fill the high-level skills gap and provide world-class expertise.”

The competition aims not only to inspire students to pursue space science and engineering, but also to encourage a more diverse range of students to choose science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, aiming for careers in the rapidly growing £17.5 billion UK space sector.

The Westcott based companies who were critical to helping the students test fire their engines, included European Astrotech, Protolaunch and Airborne Engineering alongside the Satellite Applications Catapult.

The competition is supported by the UK Space Agency and funded by sponsors including Buckinghamshire Council, the University of Sheffield, Satellite Applications Catapult, Skyrora, Civil Aviation Authority, Frazer Nash Consultancy and Rocket Engineering Ltd.

Councillor Martin Tett, Buckinghamshire Council’s Leader and Chair of Buckinghamshire’s Growth Board, said: “We are pleased to support this event which is an important step towards increasing the skillset and knowledge of students to generate a pipeline of talent for the space industry, much of which we want to work here at Westcott.

“Specialist skills development linking industry with education is central to creating the conditions for innovation, excellence, and growth for our Buckinghamshire businesses. Supporting Race2Space demonstrates our commitment to developing the skills of the next generation of engineers and inspiring them to pursue space science and engineering careers here in Buckinghamshire.”

For more information about the event please visit the Race2Space website - www.race2space.org.uk