2015-2017
Wildcat Rocketry (WRC) was founded in September 2015. During this first year, our founders worked to establish WRC as a competition team, as well as providing students the opportunity to get involved with Tripoli Rocketry Association and the National Association of Rocketry. These nationally-run organizations facilitate high power launches, and get students connected with mentors in the field.
Starting in 2017, WRC successfully launched and recovered its first high-power rocket as a team. Launching at the 2017 Spaceport America Cup, the rocket named “The Manhattan Project” achieved an 8,800-foot apogee with constant radio communication and GPS location during the entire duration of the flight. The Spaceport America Cup hosts over 120 teams every year from around the globe at Spaceport America outside of Truth or Consequences, NM.
2017-18
In 2018, the team took on two competitions. In March 2018, The Manhattan Project saw another flight at the team’s first appearance at the Argonia Cup. The Argonia Cup is held about an hour outside Wichita, KS at the Rocket Pasture, a nationally known launch site for high power rocketry with a flight waiver up to 50,000 ft AGL. At this competition, WRC competed against collegiate teams from the area including Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma, and Missouri S&T. In June 2018, the team returned to Spaceport America for its second appearance with the rocket dubbed “SpaceBoatOne.” This rocket was completely manufactured by members of the team, including fiberglass body tubes, and nose cone.
2018-19
In 2019, WRC once again attended both the Argonia Cup and Spaceport America Cup. In the fall, the team worked with members to complete their Level 1 High Power Certification, allowing them to purchase and fly motors of the H and I class. After that project, the team revamped The Manhattan Project for its final flight at the Argonia Cup and designed a nosecone replacement. This replacement was a multirotor designed to carry the payload back to the launch site. Due to safety concerns the drone was not flown, but provided great research and development for the team for next year. For the Spaceport America Cup, the team built “Jerboa,” a minimum diameter 2in rocket with a square fairing to hold the payload. This was a much more efficient design in terms of cost and weight in comparison to SpaceBoatOne.
2019-20
In the fall of 2019 Wildcat Rocketry again started with member recruitment and design work for both the Argonia Cup and Spaceport America Cup. For the Argonia Cup the team designed a deployable FPV powered glider with folding wings that would eject out of the rocket and be flown back to the target. For Spaceport America Cup, our team worked to start production on our next vehicle, Space Wagon. Alongside of this the electronics team continued to experiment with custom RF communications and ground equipment. Sadly, due to the COVID-19 pandemic both competitions were canceled for the year.
2020-21
Coming back to campus in the fall following the start of the pandemic, Wildcat Rocketry decided to hit the ground running. The first batch of our new L1 kit design, the Alpha 1 kits, were produced and flown at the October Fun Fly with a high rate of success getting many members their Level 1 certifications. After that, design work continued over zoom in the fall semester on Argonia Cup to design an autonomous "paratrooper" nosecone to deploy from the rocket and fly itself to the target. Along with continuing the design of Space Wagon, the SAC design started before Covid. At the Argonia Cup, Wildcat Rocketry flew our rocket, Purple Skyline, and was the first Kansas State University student organization to go on approved travel since the start of the pandemic. Sadly, Spaceport America once again was canceled in favor of a virtual competition in which we placed 4th in our division and 11th overall.
Summer 2021
At the start of the summer in 2021, the team learned about the passing of our long time advisor, Dr. White. Dr. White taught at Kansas State University since 1985, teaching many classes in the Mechanical Engineering department. During this time he also served as our advisor as well as the advisor for Women in Engineering, Wildcat Wind Power, and Tau Beta Pi. Upon learning of his passing we designed a memorial rocket for him to fly as a team. His memorial rocket had a beautiful launch the Sunday morning of the Argonia Cup in 2022 with many team alumni present. The rocket now resides in a display case on the third floor of the Engineering Complex in the Mechanical and Nuclear engineering wing as a standing memorial of his contributions to our team.
2021-22
During the 2021-2022 school year, Wildcat Rocketry decided to get ambitious. Not only did the team decide to finish up and fly Space Wagon on an M1939. The team also decided to start a new SAC project, and still compete in the Argonia cup with our fastest and highest flying rocket built by the team yet. The original goal was to fly Space Wagon in October along with the L1 kits. However, weather and some electronics issues caused that launch to be scrubbed. In the meantime, the team got hard to work on Vibe Check, Wildcat Rocketry's entry to the 2022 Argonia Cup. With an L1420 the rocket was to go over 13k feet and break the speed of sound. Inside would be a deployable drone that would auto home itself with the golf ball payload. The Spaceport group also got hard to work on the next iteration, Space Truck. It was designed as a 6" rocket with fully modular components that could be swapped in and out to fly on an N1000 at Spaceport America. This year, Spaceport America was able to be held for the first time since the pandemic and the team was able to compete in person and scored 9th in the 10k COTS division.
2022-23
For the 2022-23 year, the team decided to drop SAC in favor of focusing all of our manpower and resources on the Argonia Cup. For the competition, each team was required to build a two stage rocket to carry a payload (a golf ball) as high as possible then return the payload as close to a target as possible. The team designed and built "Space Semi", our first two stage rocket, from scratch to carry a scratch built drone to apogee. However, at the competition, the team was unable to have a successful two-stage launch or drone flight. Nevertheless, much knowledge on two stage flight and drone construction was gained.
2023-24
During the 2023-24 year the team continued to compete in the Argonia Cup but added an R&D division as well. Due to manpower constraints, the R&D division was put on hold at semester to better focus on the Argonia Cup. For the competition, the team built a two state rocket named "Captain Crunch Time" capable of hitting 14,000 ft. During the competition, the team had two successful flight of "Captain Crunch Time" as well as a partially successful flight of "Space Semi." Overall, WR took 4th place out of 18 teams from around the nation, the highest we have ever placed.
