UH Project Imua rocketry team wins NASA rookie award

VIDEO NEWS RELEASE

University of Hawaiʻi
Contact:
Kelli Abe Trifonovitch, (808) 228-8108
Chief Communications Officer, UH Communications
Posted: May 16, 2019

UH Project Imua team with their rocket.
UH Project Imua team with their rocket.
UH Project Imua rocket launches in Alabama.
UH Project Imua rocket launches in Alabama.

Link to file video and sound from April 6, 2019 launch: https://bit.ly/2D1akCp

Fourteen students from Honolulu, Kapiʻolani and Windward Community Colleges and UH Mānoa, from the Project Imua Mission 6 team, have been recognized for rocketry excellence.

The UH team launched its rocket and payload in Alabama in the April 2019 NASA Student Launch competition. UH won the Rookie Award, given to the top new team in the competition.

The Project Imua team also finished in the top 10 out of 45 teams in the college/university division, at No. 9. Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the University of Akron, Ohio, were the top three finishers.

“The real-life engineering skills and confidence that our students developed in this challenging competition will launch them onward to exciting careers,” said Project Imua Manager Joe Ciotti, a professor at Windward Community College.  “For them now, not even the sky is the limit.”

This year’s challenge, hosted by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, tasked student teams to propose, design, build and test a reusable rocket with a payload. The rocket had to reach a team-selected altitude between 4,000 and 5,500 feet. Once reaching its highest point, the rocket deployed a recovery system and landed safely. The payload had to be a drone or rover that autonomously deployed from the rocket after landing. NASA engineers face similar questions as they design the Space Launch System rocket to send astronauts and payloads to the Moon.

Read more from the NASA release.

OTHER FACTS:

  • The Project Imua rocket flew to 4,338 feet and the team had predicted a peak height of 4,700 feet.

  • The 10-foot-tall rocket was named “Fissure 8” after the prominent volcanic vent in the 2018 eruption on Hawai‘i Island.

  • The payload was a four-wheeled rover named “Ho‘omau” (the Hawaiian values of perseverance and persistence), designed to travel 10 feet before collecting a soil sample.

  • Project Imua social media:

More Project Imua 2019 images on Flickr:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/uhawaii/sets/72157708078686234

VIDEO (file of April 6, 2019 launch in Alabama):

BROLL: (:53)

1 launch with sound up, including countdown

1 students react

1 parachute coming down

1 more students reaction

3 shots walking out and setting up rocket

SOUNDBITES:

Katherine Bronston, Windward CC team leader (:05)

“I’m so excited that our flight went so well, it really went just as it was supposed to.”

Mia Fong, Honolulu CC team leader (:09)

“To be able to see it in person. It was really beautiful to see it work the way it’s meant to and see those ‘chutes come out and just watching it come down, it was amazing.”

Leomana Turalde, Windward CC student (:13)

“I might become an astronaut. I’ve always kind of wanted to become an astronaut since I was a kid and watching this rocket fly, I’m kind of finding confidence in myself that it’s possible.”

Craig Opie, Honolulu CC student (:14)

“I’m super excited. Totally stoked that it actually worked. We put a lot of effort and a lot of just collaboration, lack of sleep into this thing, especially over the last couple of weeks. And just seeing it go up and perform so beautifully was just amazing.”