Spaceport America Cup will run virtually this year

SIERRA COUNTY — This year’s Spaceport America Cup will be held as a virtual event.

It was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spaceport America and partner Experimental Sounding Rocket Association announced that the June 18-20 event will be an online competition and technical conference with, student teams from across the globe completing to win technical awards. One team will be selected as the overall 2021 Virtual Spaceport America Cup winner.

In addition, teams will participate in interactive poster session reviews, hear from special guest speakers, and participate in technical forums on a variety of topics.

The virtual event will also provide sponsors with the opportunity to interact with students for recruitment.

The Spaceport America Cup is one of the largest intercollegiate rocketry engineering contests and has been held in New Mexico since 2017.

More than 1,700 students and faculty participate in the annual competition.