EuRoC returns to Portuguese skies
with the support of ESA
EuRoC, the European rocket launching competition for university students, has, for the first time this year, the support of the European Space Agency. The competition will take place between the 11th and the 18th of October, in Ponte de Sor and at the Santa Margarida Military Camp, with the participation of 20 European teams.
The third edition of EuRoC – European Rocketry Challenge, a rocket launching competition for European university students, starts tomorrow. Organised by the Portuguese Space Agency, the competition takes place between the 11th and the 18th of October, in Ponte de Sor and at the Santa Margarida Military Camp, and it will include 20 participating European teams.
Starting this Tuesday, the competition will occur simultaneously at the Aerodrome of Ponte de Sor and the Santa Margarida Military Camp, in Constância. On October 12th, after having welcomed the teams the previous day, the opening ceremony will take place in Ponte de Sor, with the presence of the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, and the president of the Portuguese Space Agency, Ricardo Conde, among others. In the same day, the rockets will begin to be assembled and the jury will have their first contact with the teams to hear their pitch presentations.
From the 13th to the 17th of October, the launches will take place at the Santa Margarida Military Camp, with three launches per day, while the remaining teams finish preparing their rockets in Ponte de Sor. On the last day, on the 18th of October, the awards will be granted followed by the closing ceremony at the Aerodrome of Ponte de Sor.
This competition awards seven trophies annually, with the flight awards allocated according to the altitude reached during the competition and the type of engine. But there are some new additions in the 2022 edition.
The Payload award, given to the team with the best weight capacity, is sponsored by the European Space Agency, which, in this way, expresses its support for this competition. This award recognizes innovation, reliability, as well as the applicability and the impact of the payload on society, as if it was truly a launch into space.
“ESA and ESA Academy are proud to join the Portuguese Space Agency in the 2022 edition of EuRoC and to be a part of this inspiring competition, challenging some of the most talented European students”, said Joost Vanreuselt, responsible for the ESA Academy. “I am confident that this participation will lead them to take a step, or a giant leap, closer to a career within the field of European space. Our ESA specialists are more than ready to get to know the teams, review the rockets’ designs and support them in a successful launch”, he added.
This 3rd edition of EuRoC is also the occasion for the launch of the Best Spectral Signature Award, sponsored by ANACOM, the Portuguese Space Authority, which is directed at recognizing “a more efficient use of the radio frequency spectrum”, the Head of the Space Mission Unit at the regulating agency, Fernando Guerra, explains. “With its association to EuRoC, ANACOM aims to solidify its presence as Space Authority, while also giving visibility to its role as communications Regulator”, he concludes. The ANACOM award will be given to the team who has a successful launch, within a stipulated period and with the least percentage of channel use (spectrum occupancy).
EuRoC started in 2020 and it is one of the Portuguese Space Agency’s initiatives in education, which is one of its strategic pillars of activity since its foundation in 2019. The Portuguese Space Agency, which believes investing in young people assures the future of the Portuguese Space ecosystem, is led by the goal to promote and strengthen the space sector in Portugal for the benefit of society and the economy, both national and international.
