DAVAO CITY—The rocket engineering competition, Spaceport America Cup 2024 currently held in New Mexico, United States of America is participated by 1,700 students representing 200 universities coming from 20 countries.
And one of these collegiate teams is the 20-member Ateneo de Davao Rocketry Team who will be competing in the New Mexico tilt. The Dabawenyo rocketry team is the first ever Filipino rocketry team competing in Spaceport America Cup.
“This rocketry team has made history as the first representative from the Philippines to be eligible to compete at the prestigious Spaceport America 2024. This monumental milestone highlights the exceptional talent and ingenuity of our Filipino students in the fiercely competitive global arena of aerospace engineering,” Fr. Karel San Juan SJ, Ateneo de Davao University president said during the press conference of the rocketry team which is composed of ADDU aerospace engineering students.
Spaceport America Cup 2024 is the world’s largest intercollegiate rocketry engineering competitions for student rocketry teams. In Asia, only Taiwan and Thailand are sending student rocketry teams to the tilt which will be held from June 17 to June 22.
Joining the ADDU team is the homegrown high-powered rocket named Sibol (Growth) which can carry an 8.8 payload to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
The team will be competing in the solid propulsion category specifically in the 10,000 commercial off-the-shelf category.
“This means our rocket will be carrying a payload of 8.8 kilograms should reach an altitude of 10,000 feet. Wherein from there the rocket will deploy its parachute and then descend to the ground,” Dr. Rogel Mari Sese, department chair of ADDU’s Aerospace Engineering.
Dr. Sese said the competition is not just reaching for the highest altitude but is also more of a precision competition.
“You need to really target, even if you can reach to higher heights but if you exceed the target altitudes there are penalties for that,” Sese said.
He said the participation in the Spaceport America is motivated by the desire of the University in venturing into new areas particularly aerospace engineering and space development.
“Our country is considered as an emerging space nation especially with the passage or Republic Act 11363 in 2019 which put forth our space program, our space policy. And since 2018 Ateneo de Davao University has been offering aerospace engineering as part of our efforts in helping the country towards space development,” Sese said.
He added that space development is not just about satellites and exploring space but also has practical usage for nation-building.
Sese cited that in agriculture, there are satellites that can help monitor farmlands, estimate harvests, help in land-use planning, monitoring crop health, enable precision agriculture.
With the aerospace engineering in Davao, Sese says they are aiming that Davao will be the hub of innovation and technology.
He said Davao has a very good geography ideal for launching rockets. “Not just for test launches but in the future we hope we can launch rockets into outer space because we have the whole eastern seaboard as most of the rockets launch into space are launched in the eastern direction.”
For Franz Gueverra, an aerospace engineering fourth year student and part of the rocketry team the Sibol rocket and their participation in Spaceport America is part of ventures in developing rockets since 2022. In July 2023 they were able to launch a hybrid rocket and Sibol is the second iteration of the program.
“ Since last year we have been planning in taking part of this prestigious competition, the submission alone was quite stringent particularly the requirements but fortunately we successfully passed all the necessary reviews and checks done by the organizers of the competition,” Guevarra said. (PIA/RGA)
