Broncos reach new heights in NASA Student Launch competition
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition!" Members of Western Michigan University's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Pegasus advanced rocketry club held their breath as their 8-foot-tall rocket hurtled thousands of feet into the sky over Bragg Farms in Huntsville, Alabama.
"It is kind of surreal standing in this open field surrounded by 50 of the top schools in the nation competing for the exact same thing," says Markus Vanderzwaag, an aerospace engineering student from Elkhart, Indiana.
The culmination of nine months of hard work, the launch marked a historic milestone for Western's team: For the first time ever, it competed in NASA's Student Launch.
"Even though it was a competition, it felt like everyone was on the same team. We all wanted to see each other succeed," remembers Johnbosco Nguyen, an aerospace engineering student from Grand Rapids, Michigan. "As the rocket went up, everyone was cheering, and each stage as the parachute came out there were more cheers."
Despite being unable to separate the payload from their rocket and an early main parachute deployment, the team is celebrating its successes in its challenge debut.
"A lot of rookie teams don't even make it to launch day in their first year," says Tyler Clendenning, an aerospace engineering student from Hanover Park, Illinois. "There have been a lot of things we've overcome during the process, but I'm really proud of how far we came."
Gearing up for launch
Celebrating its 25th year, the NASA Student Launch tasks students with designing, building and flying a high-powered amateur rocket and scientific payload. This year's competition took inspiration from NASA's Artemis mission, which aims to send American astronauts back to the moon and pave the way for travel to Mars.
"We had to simulate a crew of four astronauts landing on the surface of another planet, and upon landing, they had to transmit that landing data back to Earth," Clendenning says.
Out of 53 collegiate teams from across the country, Western was the only team from Michigan to make the cut.
Over the course of the challenge, the WMU AIAA Pegasus chapter cleared a series of milestones simulating the lifecycle of a rocket—from conception and development to fabrication and launch—as well passed a rigorous series of reviews with NASA scientists to prove the viability of their concept. Communication was also key in this year's challenge, with team members gathering data transmitted from their rocket to their mission control back on the ground.
An opportunity for Experience-Driven Learning, the challenge let the team put the skills they'd been developing in the classroom to the test in real-time.
"I was able to, as the most senior member of the team, apply what I had learned in school to actual problems with this challenge. I took ideas from my senior design project and from my classes and brought them back and applied them to (the Pegasus project)," says Russell Shutes, B.S.'25, who recently graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering.
Other team members like Ella Kubesh, who just finished her second year in the aerospace engineering program, found the project helped spark renewed interest in her chosen field.
"Before I started college, I was torn between aviation and aerospace engineering. I always had that love for the aircraft side, but it was being in this club that really solidified that working on rockets and spacecraft is what I want to do in my career," says Kubesh, of Traverse City, adding she was also able to learn a number of new skills and a resume-boosting technical certification over the course of the project.
The challenge also gave the team an avenue to share its passion for science with the community through a number of outreach events, including teaching kids the basics of rocket science at the Air Zoo and holding a discussion with the local amateur radio club.
Now that the launch is complete, the team is completing a post-launch assessment review to finalize data and debrief challenge judges on its flight in Huntsville. An awards ceremony is slated for June with prizes based on nearly a dozen categories including safety, vehicle design, social media presence and STEM engagement.
An impactful trip
The NASA Student Launch is about more than firing off rockets; it's also aiming to launch the next generation of aerospace professionals. To cultivate connections, it hosts a series of seminars with NASA leadership and industry experts in Huntsville during launch weekend for teams to explore internship and career possibilities and learn about the latest technologies. There's also a rocket fair where teams show off their projects and see what their peers developed.
"The rocket fair was my favorite part of the challenge," says Nguyen. "Going around and talking to every different team and seeing what they did really opened up my eyes to what we can do."
"It gave us a lot of ideas for future projects," adds Shutes. "Seeing things like air brakes on other teams' rockets and how they accomplished it was really good for us."
The weekend itinerary also included a trip to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, which is home to more than 1,500 artifacts related to space travel, including a Saturn V moon rocket and Apollo 16 command module. "It was very inspiring," says Clendenning.
"I've taken (Dr. Kristina Lemmer's) propulsion class, where you do the math and learn about why rockets are so big, but when you actually walk the length of the Saturn V—it's more than 360 feet—you can really see how you need the first two-and-a-half stages in my rocket to get into Earth's orbit. You get to see the math as it happens in real life, because it's hanging above you," adds Shutes.
Retired NASA scientists and industry experts also act as docents at the museum, giving team members an added layer of space education. Shutes was excited to talk to a retired control systems engineer for the Saturn V rocket, which was a crucial part of the Apollo program aimed at launching astronauts to the moon. At the time, it was the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.
"It was really interesting to talk to him about the challenges they dealt with and then we could see the actual Saturn V vehicle," Shutes says.
Fired up for the future
Huntsville is sometimes called the "Rocket City" for its high concentration of tech companies. That includes United Launch Alliance (ULA), a company that designs, builds and launches rockets and collaborates with entities like NASA and the Department of Defense to support space missions. The AIAA Pegasus team got a personal tour of the facility from recent alumnus Ben Boeve, B.S.'24, who is a mechanical design engineer at ULA.
"We got to see the entire facility. They walked us through all their second-stage design and manufacturing for their upper stage, both for their Vulcan and Atlas rockets. Big stuff," Clendenning says.
"I've worked at a manufacturing company for aircraft parts, so I've only seen the manufacturing side up until now. Seeing the design side (at ULA) really confirmed for me that's what I want to do," adds Nguyen.
It's a glimpse into the future for many of the aerospace engineering students with tangible opportunities. Clendenning, just a year from graduation, is already fielding interest.
"There's a lot of eyes on us, not just at ULA but other companies as well," says Clendenning, who aspires to lead a project on building a launch vehicle or payload for an aerospace company in the future. "(AIAA Pegasus) has allowed me to meet some very interesting people in the industry. I've been in contact with employees at Blue Origin as well as our alumni at ULA, and I've heard nothing but praise for the rocketry program at WMU."
The team is hoping to ride the momentum it built in its inaugural engagement with the NASA Student Launch into the future, aiming to grow membership and expand its reach into various disciplines.
"Being part of a team is important for anyone, no matter if you're going into aerospace engineering as a career," says Katie LaBonte, a psychology student from Otsego, Michigan, who honed her technical writing skills with the team and acted as public relations officer. "We really need non-STEM majors to join and help with things like finance, business, outreach—those are just as important as building the rocket. It's what keeps the club going."
There's also the "cool" factor. The wonder of exploring new frontiers and learning about space travel is hard to beat.
"Some days it still feels like I'm a fifth grader in class still dreaming about rockets. I blinked and now I'm leading a competition where we're actually doing this. And in a couple years, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life!" Clendenning says.
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