EPFL Rocket Team wins EuRoC 2021

The big winner of the second edition of the European Rocketry Challenge – EuRoC was the Swiss EPFL Rocket Team, first prize in the overall classification in the Rocket Flight Awards Category of EuRoC2021, the EUROC AWARD. The same team, made up of students from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, also won the Hybrid 3Km Flight Award, reserved for the best launch carried out up to 3,000 meters and hybrid propulsion engines – which use solid fuel and liquid fuel.

The EuRoC2021 awards were voted on by the competition’s jury, which included seven members, chaired by Chiara Manfletti, former president of the Portuguese Space Agency – Portugal Space, who confessed: «I never stop being amazed by the work capacity, team spirit, and innovation of the students participating in EuRoC. They are the people who will define the future of aerospace. Looking at them, at what they have achieved here, is to know that Europe has the number one resource it needs to lead in the democratization of Space in the decades to come».

The second edition of EuRoC was also marked by the presence of RED, a team from the IST – Instituto Superior Técnico, from Lisbon, which will go down in history as the first one to represent Portugal in a European rocket competition.

The EuRoC2021 awards were handed out this afternoon at the competition’s closing ceremony, held at Ponte de Sor aerodrome, in Portalegre, which featured a teleconference intervention by Manuel Heitor, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education: «Our main goal as a European country is to make sure that European citizens at large become an integral part of space development for Europe in the next years. And that is the reason why we have put so much emphasis on our public policies to attract students from all over the world, particularly from Europe, to come to Portugal, to experiment new ideas: new ideas in future generations of rockets — which we need them to be of low cost and environmentally friendly — but also new satellites and, above all, the development of new services for all our citizens based on satellite images».

Eduardo Ferreira, vice-president of the Portuguese Space Agency – Portugal Space, confirmed the third edition of EuRoC, which will take place between October 17th and 23rd, 2022, with the reopening of registrations for the submission of candidatures, from the beginning of 2022, on the website of the Portuguese Space Agency and on the competition website, also stressing that: «The main goal is to jump-start the interest in Space with Portuguese youth using the European teams’ skills, energy, and enthusiasm. Furthermore, it is central to the Portuguese Space Agency to grow the space industry in Portugal tenfold during this decade».

Hugo Hilário, the Mayor of Ponte de Sor, took advantage of the closing of the seven days of this competition, which brought 400 aerospace students to the municipality, integrated in 19 teams and representing universities from 13 European countries, to say: «I would like to thank Portugal Space for trusting for believing that Portugal Air Summit was a good event to partner with. Training, education and practicing engineering and tech activities have been important focus for us! Having here some major events linked to tech, engineering, space and defence are ways of contributing to developing these áreas, in our country. Gather them here, around our Aerospace Cluster is a public policy to fight for opportunities out of the major cities in the west coast of the country».

The closing ceremony, at Ponte de Sor Aerodrome, was also attended by Brigadier General Sérgio Augusto Valente Marques, Commander of the Mechanized Brigade, de Marta Gonçalves, Project Manager of the European Rocketry Challenge and the Portuguese Space Agency, and Rogério Alves, councilor of the municipality of Ponte de Sor, who collaborated in delivering the trophies to the winners of the remaining categories in dispute:

EuRoC 2021 Winners:

• EPFL Rocket Team (Switzerland) – EuRoC Award (main prize) and the Hybrid 3Km Flight Award
• Skyward Experimental Rocketry (Italy) – Solid-3Km Flight Award and Team Award
• ARIS Piccard (Switzerland) – Hybrid 9Km Flight Award
• Propulse NTNU (Norway) – Solid 9Km Flight Award
• EHRT DanSTAR (Danmark) – Liquid 9Km Flight Award
• Aerospace Team Graz (Austria) – Technical Award
• PoliWRocket (Poland) – Design Award