ICC Helps Concordia Students Reach for the Stars

ICC Compliance Center (ICC) is constantly striving to find new ways to help keep workers and workplaces safe, but our company’s drive for excellence extends to other passions as well. As experts in hazardous materials, ICC recently donated fuel canisters to the Space Concordia Rocketry Division to assist them in their pursuit of supersonic flight and space.

Breaking Records and Setting New Goals

The student team at Concordia University saw their hard work and dedication pay off when they broke records with the help of Stewart – an experimental liquid-propelled rocket engine. Their creation obtained a thrust measuring 35 kN. One kilonewton (kN) is equivalent to about 100 kg of load under Earth’s gravity.

Stewart’s 35 kN thrust record beat the previous records of 25 kN and 25.8 kN, which were set by Nimbus, a rocket engine built by TU Delft in the Netherlands and Rocket Lab’s Rutherford engine.

The team wanted to take Stewart further and entered themselves in the Base 11 Space Challenge. This contest involves student-led university teams designing, building, and launching their own liquid-propelled, single-stage rocket to an altitude of 100 kilometres, the Kàmàn Line, by December 30, 2021. The Concordia team took home the first-place award in Phase 2 of the challenge, which was the Critical Design Review!

The challenge doesn’t only come with the prestige of attempting something that only a few groups have achieved. The first-place award comes with a $1 million prize. There are also prizes awarded throughout the process for various design and testing innovations.

Click here to watch the HotFire Test.

What’s Next for the Team?

The Concordia University team is currently in a campaign that has been developing for several years and will culminate in the launch of their rocket, Starsailor, within the next year. Their goal for Starsailor includes launching the rocket to reach 130 km above the Earth’s mean sea average, which is 30 km above the Kármán Line and is the boundary between our atmosphere and outer space.

The design and build of liquid-propelled engines is not only a challenging process to maneuver through, but there are also significant time and money commitments required. The team at Concordia is not just helping to create something that will eventually go into space. They are also helping to collect data in the development and understanding of combustion and engine design.

The team will be progressing to a full rocket test, referred to as the “Stage Test” over the upcoming months, and this will be the fruition of the project’s inception back in 2018.

ICC is a Strong Supporter of Their Community

ICC was honored and delighted to support the Concordia team in their efforts to get Stewart to the Kármán Line and win the second stage of the Base 11 Space Challenge. To go along with their mission to provide and promote safe work practices, ICC has always held strong beliefs in helping local businesses and students find success and achieve their goals.

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