The School of Engineering of UMinho participated for the first time in the European Rocketery Challenge (EuRoC), the annual rocket launch competition for European university teams. The 7th edition of the Portuguese Space Agency’s initiative took place from 15 to 21 October, in Constância, district of Santarém, with 25 teams and about 700 young people, after a record of 64 candidate teams from 26 countries.

UMinho participated with 52 students of Aerospace, Mechanical, Electronic, Biomedical, Information Systems Management and Applied Statistics. The group is called Minho Aerospace Student’s Team (MAST) and developed the experimental Mirage rocket at the Azurém campus, in Guimarães. This rocket should be able to reach an altitude of 3000 meters, using active control systems, on-board computer, sensors and parachute recovery developed by the team itself.

Launching on October 19

The group was qualified for the launch phase of the European Rocketry Challenge (EuRoC) and had its flight window scheduled for 13:00 pm on October 19, at the Santa Margarida Military Camp, in Constância, but only managed to be successful in a second flight window, at 16:30 pm. The race was broadcast live on the YouTube channel of the Portuguese Space Agency. “We are proud to join EuRoC, it is a recognition of our hard work; in recent months, we have built an ambitious technical project to make this opportunity count and fly high”, says Carolina Malhão, Aerospace Engineering student and spokesperson for the team.

The complexity of the Mirage requires mastering areas such as propulsion, electronics, structures, aerodynamics, risk management and logistics. It requires method, precision, reliability and simulation, so young people have had inputs in the technological development of partners such as the School of Engineering (especially the departments of Textile and Mechanical Engineering), Sparkes.pt, ACL, Controlar and BeyondComposite, for the future of Portuguese engineering.

In addition to UMinho, teams from Belgium, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Malta will debut at EuRoC 2026. From Portugal, a team from Instituto Superior Técnico and another with students from eight universities also participate. Among the international selections, three previous champions of the competition stand out: the Austrian Aerospace Team Graz, the Italian Skyward Experimental Rocketry and the Swiss EPFL Rocket Team.

The School of Engineering congratulates the entire team for the commitment, resilience and ambition shown in this race!

+Info: RUM