Registrations for the 3rd edition of EuRoC now open

The European Rocketry Challenge – EuRoC returns to Ponte de Sor and Campo Militar de Santa Margarida from 11 to 18 October 2022 for its third edition. Promoted by the Portuguese Space Agency – Portugal Space, this is the first European competition to launch rockets designed and assembled by university students. Applications are open, and those interested should apply on the competition’s website until 6 March.

 “EuRoC has grown and consolidated, and it is undeniable that it is already a landmark competition for European university students”, the president of Portugal Space is pleased to report. “It has become a very important competition for university teams dedicated to the design and assembly of rockets. And it has already left its mark on our universities since last year we had the launch of the first Portuguese university rocket – the Blimunda, from Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico, and in 2022 we foresee the participation of new Portuguese teams,” he adds. 

In 2021, in the second edition of EuRoC, 19 teams from 12 countries gathered in Ponte de Sor and Santa Margarida to launch their rockets. In total, more than 400 students participated in the event, coming from Switzerland, Poland, Greece, Germany, Denmark, and, of course, Portugal, among others. The big winner of the second edition of the competition was the Swiss tea EPFL Rocket Team, which took home the EuRoC Award, the first prize in the general classification. 

The Portuguese Space Agency’s educational projects manager, Marta Gonçalves, expects the number of students present at the event to grow in this third edition. And there is good reason to believe that this will happen: “In 2020, the year of the first edition, and in the middle of the pandemic, we had six teams participating. Last year, that number more than tripled. We expect European university teams’ interest in the competition not only to continue but also to extend to more students and – who knows? – to other countries.” 

To motivate the interest of university students in the themes of rocketry, and in EuRoC specifically, the Portuguese Space Agency worked in conjunction with the Technical University of Munich to promote the first edition of an online course. The course was based on lectures given by experts in areas such as design, safety or recovery systems. This EuRoC Pre-Course training took place between 14 and 19 February, and also included a presentation of the rules for launching rockets in the competition.

Promoted for the first time in October 2020, EuRoC challenges undergraduate and master’s students to launch their solid, liquid or hybrid propulsion rockets to altitudes of 3,000 or 9,000 metres. The competition is fully aligned with the strategic objectives of the Portuguese Space Agency, namely in the development of a cultural and educational framework capable of boosting the sustainable development of the space sector in Portugal.

Registration for the third edition of EuRoC is open until March 6 and can be done at www.euroc.pt, where you can also find all the necessary documentation for the teams.