Concordia students' rocket launch in northern Quebec makes history
The Starsailor, built by a student-led rocketry club, is the first rocket launched on Canadian soil in the 21st century.
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Concordia University’s rocketry club made history early Friday morning, launching the most-powerful student-built liquid-fuelled rocket ever made toward space.
It was the first rocket launch in more than 25 years to take place on Canadian soil, and the first ever in Quebec.
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Students who had driven more than 1,000 kilometres from Montreal to the launchpad north of the Cree village of Mistissini cheered and whooped as the 42-foot-long Starsailor rocket blasted off around 5:30 a.m. More than 40 current and former students who had worked on the development of the rocket travelled to the region to be part of the historic moment that had taken more than seven years to achieve. Members of the Cree community helped with the sendoff, supplying the land for the launch and constructing makeshift homes for the students to live in for weeks while they prepared for takeoff.
“Everyone’s crying,” said one team member, captured on a livestream of the event. “We’re shivering because we’re cold, but also because we’re excited.”
Fueled by liquid oxygen and jet fuel, the rocket quickly became a small flash in the sky and then disappeared as it shot upward at speeds estimated at 4,000 kilometres an hour.
It remains to be seen whether the student club achieved its ultimate goal of becoming the first civilian group to send a liquid-fuelled rocket into space. To do so, the rocket will have to fly 100 kilometres into the sky past the Karman line, recognized as the boundary to outer space. Computer recordings of the flight will determine how fast and far it travelled.
Students noted during the flight that the rocket did not fire for as long as expected. Team members had been planning for the engine to burn for at least 30 seconds, but one member noted it appeared there were only 23 seconds of thrust.
Whatever the ultimate outcome, Concordia’s student-led rocketry club achieved a historic sendoff, firing the first rocket to be launched on Canadian soil in the 21st century. To power Starsailor, the team members had built in 2021 the most powerful student-built rocket engine ever recorded, stronger than the first engines built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX corporation.
It was then that they knew they had something capable of sending a rocket into space.
The remote location was chosen to reduce the chance of a catastrophic accident in case the rocket veered off course. Transport Canada rerouted commercial air traffic in the region to allow for the launch. It took several years for the students to granted permission from Transport Canada for the launch.
The rocketry division of Concordia’s University’s space club began working on Starsailor seven years ago as part of an international student competition offering a $1-million prize. When the deadline for the competition ended without their building a working rocket, students decided to continue with their quest, with most members graduating and others stepping in to fill their positions. Since 2018, more than 700 students have had a hand in designing and building the rocket and its multiple components, with aid of faculty from the Gina Cody School of Engineering and dozens of sponsors.
“If they’re successful with their launch, it will be the first amateur liquid-fuelled rocket to reach space in the world ever,” Adam Trumpour, founder of the university rocketry competition Launch Canada told the Montreal Gazette in June. “So it’s absolutely historic.”
The club estimates it has collected more than $1 million in cash through fundraising, university and government grants and corporate donations. Another $4 million in donations came in the form of free tools, equipment and software.
Prior to the launch, the students drove more than 10 hours north from Montreal to the launch site and stayed for days in uninsulated wooden huts where they could sleep and prepare for the launch. They had to wait for more than a week before the weather conditions allowed them to proceed, as storms passed through the region. A period of low winds was needed so that the rocket would not be blown off course
On Friday morning, amid dead calm as the sun began to rise, all conditions were finally in alignment.
Now comes the recovery mission, as team members attempt to find the rocket containing more than 60,000 components and computer recordings. If things went as planned, parachutes deployed, allowing the rocket to float back to Earth. Telemetry devices designed by the students will hopefully allow them to track the whereabouts of Starsailor.
“Goodbye everyone (heart emoji)“ Space Concordia wrote in the comments section of their livestream broadcast. “It was a blast.”
This story will be updated.
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