European Rocketry Challenge: Hungarians in the Top 10

BME Suborbitals, a team of engineering candidates from the Budapest University of Technology (BME), finished 5th in their category and 9th in the overall ranking at Europe's most prestigious international rocket competition, the European Rocketry Challenge.

The competition, organized by the Portugal Space Agency (Agência Espacial Portuguesa) and the European Space Agency, was held in Portugal.

During the eight-day event, the 50-strong team and their rocket had to meet a number of professional criteria, with the jury assessing not only the engineering of the rocket, its flight quality and the team's dynamics, but also its innovative and cost-effective solutions. The rocket was assembled and fired after more than a year of preparation. It is true that the first assembly was unsuccessful because an electronic fault caused the parachute release mechanism to unexpectedly trip.

Finally, after minor repairs, the BME team’s rocket was successfully fired and in flight, it exceeded the speed of sound and reached an altitude of 3,020 meters, making it one of the most accurate rockets in the 3-kilometer category. The parachute deployed after reaching its peak altitude, allowing the rocket to land safely.

The team said on the social media site that “we are glad to announce our successful flight on the European Rocketry Challenge. We launched our rocket in the 3-km category, which means that during design phase we had to aim for an apogee of 3 km. Our team is proud that we exceeded this target altitude by only 20 meters. Moreover, we also managed to reach supersonic speed during flight, as our rocket accelerated up to 1778 km/h (Mach 1.45). Only a few teams could reach such velocity!”