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ExoBroncoLeading The Collegiate Space Race
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What is ExoBronco?
The Exo Bronco Project is a multiyear, undergraduate led project pursuing the goal of sending a multi-stage solid propellant rocket to the edge of space, inspired by different high-power rockets and past UMBRA projects. For years, the cornerstone of UMBRA rocketry has been the Singularity team, which is a solid propellent single stage competition rocket that aims to hit a designated altitude. Through competing in multiple rocket competitions, the propulsion, aerodynamics, and avionics knowledge of UMBRA has grown and grown. Eventually, the club felt comfortable in starting a multistage rocket team, creatively named MRP or the Multistage Rocket Project. Over the course of its life, it faced a lot of challenges including issues with propulsion, budget, stage separation, and fin construction. Some of them were solvable, others were left unanswered. At the end, MRP was successfully launched and recovered, but it did not meet expectations and the project needed a new direction. Despite short falling with MRP, UMBRA learned a lot from its failures and felt more ambitious. Years prior to this, the leadership were already dreaming about a space shot. “It would be awesome to get to the edge of space”, they said.
Determined, excited, prepared, UMBRA thus started the Exo Bronco Project to research and build a multi-stage platform to reach the edge of space. The project will span across three years and three rockets, with each having increasingly higher altitude goals, until it reaches the Karman Line. In the process, the project will build better engineers as well. There will be integration between the different disciplines to solve various problems involved in a two-stage rocket. Members will learn how to design under the governing systems engineering principles. They will communicate with outside sources to machine the different parts of the rocket. They will master leadership skills as well as technical skills. They will communicate with each other, struggle together, and overcome to reach their unifying goal. When Exo Bronco crosses the horizon, it will be the first college built two-stage rocket to ever do so.
Determined, excited, prepared, UMBRA thus started the Exo Bronco Project to research and build a multi-stage platform to reach the edge of space. The project will span across three years and three rockets, with each having increasingly higher altitude goals, until it reaches the Karman Line. In the process, the project will build better engineers as well. There will be integration between the different disciplines to solve various problems involved in a two-stage rocket. Members will learn how to design under the governing systems engineering principles. They will communicate with outside sources to machine the different parts of the rocket. They will master leadership skills as well as technical skills. They will communicate with each other, struggle together, and overcome to reach their unifying goal. When Exo Bronco crosses the horizon, it will be the first college built two-stage rocket to ever do so.
