The NASA Student Launch

is a national University-level competition held in Huntsville, Alabama at NASA Marshall Space Center. The competition is payload focused and the rockets reach altitudes of ~5,000 ft. Payloads are research based, and used to support NASA’S Space Launch System. The Buckeye Space Launch Initiative is competing with a student researched and developed rocket and payload design!

Structures Team

The structures team constructs and applies any design changes for the airframe, nosecone, and fins of the rocket in addition to any specialized structural needs. The main material used is fiberglass composite material, but other materials such as wood and plastics are employed.

Payload Team

Each year, the payload team is given a different mission from the NASA SLI competition. This year the goal of the payload is to design a system that tracks the location of the rocket without the use of GPS. To do this, the payload team is creating a system that uses acceleration and gyroscopic data to determine the location of the rocket and transmits that back to home base, where the final location will be depicted on a gridded image of the launch site. The title of this year's payload is TOSU (Transponder and Orientation Sensing Unit).