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ITBA Students Prepare Supersonic ‘Aconcagua’ for June Rocketry Contest in Texas

A successful flight would make the team the first from an Argentine university to break the sound barrier.

Overview

  • ITBA’s Rocketry Team will compete at the International Rocket Engineering Competition in Texas on June 15–20 with its student-built rocket, Aconcagua.
  • The group is entering the 30k COTS class, a 30,000‑foot category that uses commercial rocket motors and demands stronger structures and recovery systems than lower-altitude flights.
  • The mission targets an apogee near 10 kilometers and a top speed around Mach 2, which remains an unproven goal until the competition flight.
  • More than 60 students across mechanical, electronic, industrial, computer, bioengineering, and analytics programs built the vehicle under coordinator Patricio Pedreira.
  • Development work covered trajectory simulations, a composite airframe, avionics and electronics integration, recovery hardware, FEM analysis, and component tests, capping a climb from 10k entries and 2024 top‑20 design honors to a 30k supersonic attempt.