NC State's rocketry team to participate in a prestigious NASA competition

By: Jeremy Baker | NBC-17
Published: February 07, 2012
Updated: February 07, 2012 - 6:37 PM

NC State's rocketry team will participate in NASA's University Student Launch Initiative for a third time this April.

The ten-member, student-run Tacho Lycos, which means "speedy wolf" in Greek, will compete against other schools such as MIT, Penn State, Florida State, and Virginia Tech, to see who can come up with the best design that can reach an altitude of at least one-mile above the ground.

Team member Garrett Abbott-Frey tells us that they recently launched a sub-scale rocket in Orangeburg, S.C. It was very successful, reaching an altitude of 5,900 feet. The competition rocket itself will be 110 inches long and 5.5 inches in diameter. It will be handmade by the team out of carbon fiber and weigh 47.4 lbs including the motors and two payloads.

The first payload will allow the rocket to be carbon neutral, by absorbing and scrubbing the same amount of CO2 that the rocket motor produces. The second will test the ability of a meteorological fluid called Magnito Rheological Fluid, to lessen the affects of G-forces on sensitive equipment typically found on rockets.

Check out the team's website for a detailed video about how the rocket will function. As well as YouTube video of their test launch this past winter.

The team continues to raise the funds necessary to get them to the competition, and are about halfway there. You can see how far their fundraising efforts have come, and even become a backer yourself by going to their fundraising page here.