Aero Mavs Earn Second Place at Lone Star Cup
The University of Texas at Arlington’s Aero Mavs, a student-led rocketry organization, recently earned 2nd place at the Lone Star Cup, a statewide competition that challenges teams to design, build, and launch high-powered rockets.
This achievement comes after the team encountered and persevered through a series of challenges throughout the weekend.
On Friday afternoon, when the team was scheduled to depart for the Lone Star Cup, issues were discovered with the roll control system. As a result, the rocket had to remain in the lab for troubleshooting, delaying our arrival at the launch site until approximately 3 a.m.
By 6 a.m. Saturday, the team was back at work. The ASAP team focused on debugging the roll control code, while the rest of the team handled logistics to secure site access, completed registration, and conducted safety pre-flight checks with judges. However, the cloud ceiling was deemed too low to allow any team to launch, so most people could not get to launch until 2 pm. Moreover, what was expected to be a quick fix turned into a 12-hour effort, with the ASAP team working continuously throughout the day to fix the roll control program.
Around 5 p.m., once the issue was resolved, the team began assembling the rocket with extreme care, as there was no room for error. However, just as assembly was completed and ATLAS was ready for transport to the launch pad, they were informed that the launch window had closed. This forced the students to disassemble the rocket to prevent battery depletion and rest for the night.
The team regrouped at 5 a.m. Sunday and immediately began reassembly, aiming to be ready for the 7 a.m. launch window. By 7:30 a.m., they were at the pad, and at 8 a.m., ATLAS launched successfully. The rocket landed in a tree, losing one of its three fins, but was recovered within 10 minutes (a notably fast recovery compared to typical timelines).
Later that day, after all teams had launched, the Aero Mavs were awarded 2nd place at the second-ever Lone Star Cup.
The team’s competition vehicle, ATLAS, represents months of dedicated work across avionics, structures, and recovery systems. Through hands-on design, testing, and flight operations, Aero Mavs continues to provide students with real-world engineering experience beyond the classroom.
This competition success reflects the team’s commitment to innovation, collaboration, and engineering excellence, and highlights the growing impact of UTA students in collegiate rocketry competitions.
In the coming months, the Aero Mavs will focus on repairing and improving the rocket. The damaged fin has already been reattached, and further reinforcements (such as tip-to-tip fiberglass layups) are planned. They will also continue refining the roll control system and developing a functional airbrake system, another key technology included in our rocket for the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC).
The next test flight is scheduled for late May at Tripoli’s Texas Shootout, where the team plans to test an improved roll control system and conduct the first flight test of the airbrakes.
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