EuRoC 2022 will have the most teams ever

After having received a record number of more than 40 applications, the 2022 edition of the European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC) will also have the largest number of participants ever: in all, 25 teams are lining up to launch their rockets at the Santa Margarida Military Camp. In its third edition, EuRoC returns to the Army camp near Constância and Ponte de Sor Aerodrome.

With the increase in the number of competing teams, the Portuguese Space Agency – Portugal Space, which promotes the event, expects to gather more than 600 students in the Ribatejo region between the 11th and 18th of October. This year, the competition also has one more day, taking up a week on the European rocketeers’ calendar.

The Portuguese participation also grew in 2022: the Fénix Rocket Team joins the team RED, from Instituto Superior Técnico, which debuted in last year’s edition with the Blimunda rocket. The team is made up of students from the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and the University of Coimbra.

Marta Gonçalves, Education Officer at the Portuguese Space Agency, considers the expansion of the number of participating teams “inevitable”, as it “accompanies the growth of competition at European level”. “Last year’s edition represented a huge growth for EuRoC, because we went from six teams in 2020 to 20 in 2021. This year, with 25 teams, the competition asserts itself as a meeting point for these young university students, being the top of the year for those who dedicate themselves to these projects”, she adds.

The number of countries represented in the EuRoC has also increased: in 2021, there were 13; this year, there will be 15, with teams coming from Spain, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The country with the most participants is once again the United Kingdom, with a total of four teams.

ARIS (Akademische Raumfahrtinitiative Schweiz), from Switzerland, and the Danes DanSTAR (Danish Student Association for Rocketry), will participate in the EuRoC for the third consecutive time, having not missed any of the editions. The Austrian TUST (TU Wien Space Team) will return to the competition, after their participation in 2020.

But there are also newcomers — and quite a few. In addition to the Portuguese Fénix Rocket Team, ten more teams arrive at EuRoC for the first time: AQUILO Rocket Team (Holland); BME Aerospace – BMEAERO (Hungary); BBE Suborbitals – BMESUB (Hungary); CTU Space Research (Czech Republic); Faraday Rocketry UPV (Spain); Hybrid Engine Development – ​​HyEnD (Germany); LeoFly – LF (France); Portal Space (Norway); Poznan University of Technology (Poland); PUT Rocketlab (Poland); Student Team for Aerospace and Rocketry – STAR (Spain).

An equal number of teams return to Ponte de Sor and Campo Militar de Santa Margarida after launching their rocket for the first time last year: Aerospace Team Graz – ASTG (Austria); Aristotle Space & Aeronautics Team – ASAT (Greece); Bath Rocket Team – BRT (United Kingdom); CranSEDS (United Kingdom); Endeavor (United Kingdom); Imperial College London Rocketry – ICLR (United Kingdom); PoliWRocket (Poland); Rocket Experiment Division – RED (Portugal); SimLE SimBa (Poland); Skyward Experimental Rocketry – Skyward ER (Italy) and the EPFL Rocket Team – ERT (Switzerland), which will try to renew the victory achieved in the 2021 edition.

First promoted in October 2020, EuRoC challenges undergraduate and master’s students to launch their solid, liquid, or hybrid rockets to altitudes of 3,000 or 9,000 meters. The competition is fully aligned with the strategic objectives of the Portuguese Space Agency, namely in the development of a cultural/educational framework capable of boosting the sustainable development of the space sector in Portugal. The competition has the municipality of Ponte de Sor and the Portuguese Army as partners.