What a proud moment for all Malaysians. A team led by Vanmitha Athimoolam ‘Wau Rocketry’ is expected to become the first Malaysian team to participate in the Spaceport America Cup 2022 that will be held in New Mexico from 20th to 25th June 2022.
Vanmitha who is the project manager said “I knew about this competition in 2019 when there was a Malaysian who took the lead for his UK team at SA CUP 2019. Since then I decided to form a Malaysian team to the competition. I prepared for it by attending a rocketry workshop in USM and in 2020 we had a pandemic and it was a virtual competition in 2021. So we decided to take part in the competition the following year, 2022.”
Spaceport America Cup 2022 is the world’s largest intercollegiate rocket engineering conference and student rocket launch competition. For this competition, students all over the world will gather at this world-class spaceport facility to launch their rocket. The competition will be held in New Mexico and is organised by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA). Students are tasked to launch solid, liquid and hybrid rockets to targeted altitudes of 10k and 30k feet.
Formed in September, this Wau Rocketry team consists of 9 Aerospace engineering students, 2 chemical engineering students and 1 mechanical engineering student.
Vanmitha and the team will launch a Malaysian made high powered rocket at 10 000 ft in New Mexico under the Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) category. The project mission is to launch a rocket at 10k feet and recover it back safely and deploy a Nanosat that lands autonomously by using quadcopter tech.
The team named their rocket, HEBAT Rocket, which stands for H-Hardwork, E-Experience, B-Believe, A-Achieve, T-Together.
“I am truly grateful for this golden opportunity to make my other dream come true. This time, it’s not only a dream of mine but a dream that belongs to a TEAM.”
The motive of this team is to kickstart the nation’s high powered rocketry development and create a benchmark among Malaysian engineering students in rocketry and also encourage Malaysians to be a part of the project via a crowdfunding campaign.
“We are not professional rocketeers. We are just ordinary students with extraordinary dreams.”
Feel free to follow their official Instagram and Facebook page for more updates as you will stand a chance to be a part of the project.
Best wishes to Wau Rocketry for the forthcoming Spaceport America Cup 2022! Go Malaysia!
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