As of April 2019, COBRA has been renamed to the CU Sounding Rocket Laboratory, or SRL! This name was voted on by the team and found exceptional support. We expect to fully update our website and public materials to reflect this over the next few months.
TEAM ACTIVITY UPDATES
We have some fantastic news to share. As of approximately one week ago, the CU Engineering Excellence Fund (EEF) has fully funded SRL's Major grant proposal for the 2019-2020 school year to the tune of $21,850! We are extraordinarily thankful to the EEF for supporting our group so fully and are proud of the team that put this proposal together.
LAB SPACE CHANGE
SRL activities this summer are going to be impacted by the Aerospace Engineering Sciences move from the Engineering Center to the Smead Aerospace Building beginning in mid-July. The new construction will allow Aerospace students unprecendented access to composite fabrication shops, electronics laboratories, machine shops, and a purpose-built rocket and jet engine test stand in a single building! ECME 1B30F, the team's home in the Engineering Center since 2015, has been concordantly reallocated, so we look forward to utilizing the new space once it comes online next year.
IREC 2019
The last piece of news is that SRL will unfortunately be unable to participate in IREC 2019 as originally planned. A team-wide halt on propellant manufacturing and testing activities in March put a stopper in the most central component of our motor development program. University teams elsewhere in the United States have dedicated facilities on or near their campuses for propellant mixing and storage, but we have been thus far unsuccessful in requesting access to comparable facilities anywhere on or near the CU Boulder campus. As of this update, SRL is not equipped to manufacture the motor grains required to participate in IREC 2019. Our soonest launch date has thus been pushed to the fall semester.
We hope to have these issues resolved in time to participate in IREC 2020. If you have any questions, suggestions, or are interested in supporting the team, contact us via email at COBRA@colorado.edu.