eRocketeer August 2025 - National Association of Rocketry

HomeeRocketeer August 2025

National Association of Rocketry

Electronic Rocketeer—What's Happening in Rocketry

August 2025 | Volume193

Message from the NAR President

Fellow NAR Member,

Your personal safety and that of all who attend our launches is very important. As the temperatures approach 100 degrees here in Boulder, I want to remind everyone to remember to mind the heat and take measures to stay cool. Since the absence of trees and other shade producers like buildings are generally considered good from a rocket perspective, ensuring that you have canopies or the like is important. Note – don’t forget to securely anchor popup tents with stakes to prevent tumble weed popups when a breeze picks up. Drink plenty of water and fluids. Wear sun protection – sunscreen, big hats, and lightweight clothing made to act as sun protection. Look out for yourself, your family, and those around you to make sure that everyone is staying healthy in the hot weather. And, keep track of others at your launches as they go to retrieve rockets. Offer to help, bring along water and a means to communicate back to someone at the range in case of problems.

As I write this column this month, I am also compiling my packing list to go to Serbia for the 2025 World Space Modeling Championships. The delegation from the US is nearly 100 strong and the largest group from all the countries attending. We have 27 junior participants, 24 senior participants, and 44 supporters making the journey to Zrenjanin Serbia. Stay tuned for results next month.

The American Rocketry Challenge 2025-2026 is officially open, and teams are already registering. Last year we had over 1,000 teams enter the contest and hope to beat that this year. For all our senior and young adult members, we need more volunteers to mentor the student teams. Please consider volunteering to be a mentor, many teams can be flexible with schedules to allow for mentor flexibility, so don’t shy away because of a scheduling issue that might not be a factor.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer.

Until next month, be safe, have fun and pay it forward.

John N. Hochheimer

NAR President

NAR 74537 L3

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All Saints Episcopal High School of Fort Worth Texas Bellhorn

American Rocketry Challenge 2026 Registration Opens

Each year the NAR, in partnership with the Aerospace Industries Association, runs the nation’s largest rocketry-based student design-build-fly challenge competition, the American Rocketry Challenge (ARC). Now in its 24^thyear of operation, this program has enrolled over 17,000 teams (about 100,000 students) of 6^ththrough 12^thgraders from U.S. schools or non-profit youth organizations such as Scouts, 4-H, or CAP from all 50 states. ARC inspires students to work as a team to learn and apply principles of aerospace system design and flight testing—and to consider pursuing an aerospace career where they can apply these same skills at a larger scale. The teams compete for $100,000 in prizes and a chance (for the 1^stplace team) to have an all-expenses paid trip to then fly their rocket at the Farnborough Air Show in England. ARC challenges teams of 3 to 10 students to fly a model rocket that they designed and built themselves and that contains a single raw egg as its payload to a precise altitude (this year 750 feet) and to recover the egg safely within a flight duration window of 36 to 39 seconds from liftoff to landing. Closest to these targets is the winner! The details of the program, the full rules and requirements, and a lot of how-to material are all provided on the event website, www.rocketrychallenge.org Registration is open from now until December 6. Once registered, teams must fly locally-observed “qualification flights” with their rocket and report the score results by March 30 in order to be eligible to be one of the 100 teams nationally who are invited to compete in person at the National Finals in Northern Virginia on the weekend of May 15-17, 2026.

The success of ARC rests on a foundation of local support from NAR adult members (age 19 and older) who mentor teams and teach them safe rocketry skills, and from NAR sections who welcome the teams at their launches. And we need everyone to recruit local schools to sponsor teams, this local recruiting is the program’s best source of new teams each year. If you are not already a mentor but would like to make yourself available as a resource to teams in your local area, we very much need your help. ARC registers over 1,000 teams from virtually every state in the US, many of them from schools in places where we do not currently have a mentor nearby. If you can help please contact the NAR’s ARC Manager, Trip Barber, at ahbarber@alum.mit.edu.

Check Out the NAR Members Only Forum
NAR Rocketry Forum

Rocket Safety: Night Launches

Night launches are an option some sections use to allow flying during a cooler part of the summer days and during the fall to extend the flying day. Night launches have hazards that are minimized during daylight operations. The ability for participants to see ground hazards like critters and holes is compromised. Recovery system deployment is harder to discern for ground observers and models that "go dark" cannot be tracked after motor burnout. Range safety personnel have difficulties in determining who is on the range and their proximity to launch pads. This article offers some recommendations how to mitigate night launch hazards.

The FAA regulations that govern hobby rocketry (14 CFR 101.22, Subpart C) do not restrict night operations on model rockets; normal daylight restrictions apply. The FAA must provide prior authorization for high power night launches; e.g. your waiver must allow launches between sunset and sunrise hours. Verify that the waiver has no other special conditions or restrictions (e.g. altitude limits) for night launches.

All personnel entering the range should be wearing clothing with reflective surfaces. Reflective vests are available from many retail stores. Personnel should also display some form of low-level illumination including light sticks (Cyalume is a brand name) or adjustable brightness flashlights/headlights. Dollar stores may carry chemical lights including necklaces and bracelets but these are typically dim. Some flashlights/headlights may have adjustable brightness to better illuminate ground hazards. Red lights, from red filters on white lights or red LEDs, are often desired to maintain night vision.

Totally redundant electrical lighting (batteries, switches, and light emitters are all separate for each light source) on high power models should be required by local range safety officials to help prevent models from going dark (good practice for larger model rockets). Lighting on all model types should be visible throughout the rocket’s trajectory. Chemical lighting is reliable so redundancy is not required. High output chemical lights are available that are visible at long distances; standard chemical lights are typically not adequate.

Lighting that is mounted on the outside of the rocket airframe should be evaluated for how securely it is mounted and its effect on stability. An aft placement of batteries may also adversely affect rocket stability. It is recommended that rockets intended for night launches be previously flown during daylight to assure stability.

Steve Lubliner

NAR Safety Committee Chairman

Membership 8,647
Family: 420

Junior: 508
Life: 137
Young Adult: 2,503
Senior: 4,601
Senior Plus: 445
Teacher + Students: 33

HPR Certified
Jr Level 1: 158

Level 1: 2,103

Level 2: 1,608
Level 3: 658

Rich Wallner poses with his Starship Super Heavy.

Section News

Active NAR Sections: 263

New Sections – The NAR would like to welcome the Pine Tree Model Rocketry Section #998 out of Litchfield, ME, the Academy Space Research Organization Section #999 out of Morris Plains, NJ, and the Tufts Rocketry Section #1000 out of Medford, MA. For more about these Sections or to find the one closest to you, visit the NAR Club Finder page. Want to charter a new NAR Section? Please fill out the Submit a Local Club form.

49 out of 50 – Did you know that the NAR currently has active chartered Section in 49 of the 50 states in the US? Delaware is the only state that does not have an active chartered NAR Section? Do we have any Delaware members who would like to help the NAR achieve a 50 in 50 status? Please reach out to the Section Activities Chairman for more information.

Section Launches – ARC, NASA’s Student Launch, and other rocketry competitions will be getting underway over the next few months and Teams will be looking for launches to conduct their practice/qualification/demonstration flights. All Sections should submit your launch events to be added to the NAR's Event calendar. In addition to helping these teams, this is another way for potential members to find you and see what the NAR is all about. You can submit your events online HERE.

Section Member Affiliation – Are you a member of a Section? Please log into your NAR account, go to your Member Profile page and scroll down to the “More Member Options” box. Click on the “Clubs/Additional Members” link to add the Section(s) you’re affiliated with. We will soon be conducting an audit of Section memberships to ensure each Section is meeting the minimum NAR member requirements for their Section type so make sure your name is counted!

Please Note: Adding a Section to your NAR Member Profile does not automatically make you a member of that Section. You are responsible for reaching out to the Section that you are interested in for details on how to become an actual member.

Do you have any Section related questions? – Check out the Section FAQ's for answers to most commonly asked questions. If you don’t find your question listed there, simply contact the Section Activities Chairman.

Respectfully,

Chuck Neff

SAC Chairman

Contest Rocketry News

USMRSC

The latest edition of the US model rocket sporting code has been updated and placed online. Please check for the most recent rules changes that affect this year's NRC FAI events.

NARAM 67

CD: Matt Steele

Date: TBD

Location: IAC Muncie, Indiana

Events: 2025-26 NRC events and…

Concept Sport Scale

Scale

B / C Scale Altitude

2025-26 NRC Events

For the 2025-26 Contest year, the following NRC events have been chosen...

1/2 A PD FAI

1/2 A SD FAI

1/2 A HD FAI

A RG FAI

C Egg Loft Altitude

A Altitude

This slate of events was chosen to support the increased participation of FAI contestants, especially juniors, in NRC and NARAM. These events were also chosen to integrate NRC championship with US Team selection which will be held during NARAM-67.

Mentoring and Outreach

In conjunction with the increased selection of FAI events for NRC and NARAM, the contest board is actively trying to recruit, provide resources to and help train contestants to build and fly FAI models.

I am putting together a mentoring list so that anyone who needs some competition help can get in contact with someone who is willing to help. Please add your name and contact info to the following spreadsheet if you would like to be contacted by those in need of competition help.

If you would like to get help with competition, then send me an email and I will see what we can do to help.

NAR Competition Mentor List

Competition Zoom Meeting

I will be hosting a monthly zoom for members who would like to talk about competition.

This is an open meeting for any NAR member who wants to see what is going on in competition.

The next meeting will be held on Saturday August 9th at 9pm (ET). If there is a topic you would like to include, please send me an email. Join in and meet with competitors from across the country. Please register for the meeting using the following link.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsceGgqT4rG90eSqEj2Za0TAcGNxykF9Ug

Read more about it at the NAR latest competition news.

https://www.nar.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=114127&item_id=119931&

NRC Scoreboard

Check out the latest results on the NRC scoreboard!

Al de la Iglesia

NAR Contest Board Chair

narcbchair@nar.org

aiglesia@gmail.com