UTEP Earns Top Prize at Premier Texas Rocketry Competition
Miners beat out a dozen other Texas teams including Texas Tech, Texas A&M and UTSA
EL PASO, Texas (April 15, 2025) – The University of Texas at El Paso’s Sun City Summit Rocket Team claimed victory at the Lone Star Cup competition in Seymour, Texas this past month, beating out a dozen other Texas teams including Texas Tech University, Texas A&M and The University of Texas at San Antonio.
The Lone Star Cup, which took place March 22-23, is the largest student-run collegiate rocketry engineering competition in Texas and features a single category: the Barrowman Award, which is bestowed upon the rocket that achieves a real-world altitude most closely reflective of its simulated altitude. UTEP’s rocket, Prometheus, reached 6,110 feet – a mere 10 feet off from its simulated altitude of 6,100 feet.
“Competition teams are one of the ways that departments invest in their students, and this victory proves that the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering’s investment is paying off,” said Pedro Ferreira Da Silva, a master’s student in aerospace engineering who serves as the Sun City Summit Rocket Team’s project manager. “Hopefully, our efforts will result in more opportunities such as these for UTEP aerospace and mechanical engineering students.”
Since its inception in 2021, The Sun City Summit Rocket Team has been a staple at various rocketry competitions. Prior to this year’s victory, the best finish for the team was 29th overall in the Spaceport America Cup, a competition that features more than 150 collegiate teams from around the world.
The rocket team’s calendar year parallels UTEP’s academic year, with the design and manufacturing of rockets running from early fall to spring. To ensure sufficient manpower and technical expertise for its numerous rockets, the team consists of more than 100 members who represent 10 different majors across the colleges of engineering, science and business. These areas of study include aerospace engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, finance and risk management, industrial and systems engineering, international business, mathematics, mechanical engineering and physics.
Rocket team members are trained throughout the year by faculty and more experienced teammates. This is done to ensure proper depth of knowledge and continuity from one year to the next.
One of these faculty members is Jaeyoung Cho, Ph.D., an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, who also serves as the team’s primary faculty advisor.
“The Sun City Summit Rocket Team’s accomplishments are no small feat,” said Cho. “It is difficult and complex to organize a large group of people, across different disciplines, to build a functioning rocket. The fact that our students do it year after year, and in a largely independent manner, is worthy of celebration.”
The Sun City Summit Rocket Team is looking to translate the momentum from its recent victory at the Lone Star Cup into a successful showing at the upcoming International Rocketry Engineering Competition. The event, which will take place in Midland and Saragosa, TX, June 9-14 will feature more than 150 colleges and universities from throughout the USA and the world.
About The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 25,000 students are Hispanic, and more than half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 171 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.
Last Updated on April 15, 2025 at 12:00 AM | Originally published April 15, 2025
By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications
