IREC Team Review's
"We are Buckeye Space Launch Initiative (BSLI). The primary rocketry team at Ohio State. Our goal is to teach students about high-power rocketry and compete in the annual IREC 30K SRAD competition, the annual NASA SLI, and research liquid rocketry for future projects. At BSLI IREC, our biggest accomplishment was winning the 30K category in 2017. Recently, our successful student-designed single separation dual deployment system has been a major success by working flawlessly for the past three years straight. We have used the same Rocketman Parabolic parachute for all these flights and ejection tests. It has survived some serious punishment, and it is still flying! We have experienced some major hurdles in the past few years since the COVID-19 pandemic, including losses of equipment due to severe steam leaks in our building and a major fire that broke out in an adjacent lab, causing us to cease work. We have overcome these hurdles by sticking together as a team and striving to push forward in our shared love of rocketry.
The NASA SLI team participates in NASA’s yearly Student Launch Initiative Challenge. This team’s biggest accomplishment is regularly placing in the top 20 out of up to 100 teams in these yearly challenges. Our goal is not only to reach an altitude specified by the team before the building process, but also to complete a payload challenge set by NASA. Some amazing payload challenges completed with Rocketman parachutes include a helicopter device that landed separately from the rocket and a radio transmission system that transferred data after landing. For this team, we routinely use the same Rocketman parachutes in a dual deployment recovery system as well, with no mishaps since the team’s inception (2019). Rocketman’s 8ft parachute is used for the main, and a 2ft parachute is used for drogue.”
Cheers and happy flying!
-Calvin Beall
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My name is Jenna Whiting, and I am the Chief Marketing and Finance Officer for Bulldog Rocketry.
"UMD Bulldog Rocketry is dedicated to advancing student-led rocketry through innovation, testing, and high-performance flight. Recently, our team successfully flew a rocket to 26,000 feet, deploying a 5-ft Pro X drogue parachute at an extreme velocity of 400 feet per second with no noticeable damage, followed by a 16-ft main parachute at 800 feet AGL—both of which performed smoothly and reliably. Rocketman Parachutes have consistently delivered strong results on our vehicles; even when deployed at velocities far beyond expectations, they have opened cleanly, demonstrated stable descent behavior, and contributed to multiple successful recoveries. We’ve repeatedly tested these chutes and found them exceptionally stable and dependable."
Thank you for thinking of us for this opportunity. Thank you!
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Georgia Tech Experimental Rocketry (GTXR) is a project team within the Ramblin’ Rocket Club (RRC) at the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the largest undergraduate organizations on campus. Our mission is to become the first collegiate team to launch a two-stage, solid-fuel supersonic rocket to the Kármán line. GTXR follows an iterative design philosophy, developing and refining a new vehicle each year based on lessons learned from prior flights, giving students hands-on experience across the full engineering design cycle. Over the years, our team has achieved several key milestones, including successful passive staging, parachute deployment, and creating the largest and most powerful collegiate solid rocket motors, which reflect our continued progress.
GTXR has relied on Rocketman parachutes for several years to ensure safe and repeatable recovery under nominal flight conditions. GTXR primarily uses Rocketman’s Ballistic Mach II and Pro Experimental parabolic parachutes for their flexible yet durable construction, compact packaging, and proven reliability across multiple successful deployments. These parachutes are deployed via pressure vessels actuated by boron potassium nitrate (BPN) ignition using electronic matches, and their straightforward integration has allowed us to implement them efficiently within our recovery systems. When properly sized and deployed, Rocketman parachutes have consistently resulted in controlled descent behavior and minimal to no vehicle damage, enabling reliable recovery of both hardware and flight data. Additionally, Rocketman’s provided coefficients of drag allow us to accurately predict descent rates and impact velocities during recovery analysis.
Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity! We are glad to be featured and continue using Rocketman Parachutes in our vehicles.
Sincerely, Sarah Dea
RRC Vice President
https://www.ramblinrocketclub.org/
