From September 25-27, Dnipro Kamyanka aerofield welcomed 44 space modelers from 8 Ukrainian regions to participate in the Ukrainian Space Models 2020 Championship. The competition was organized by the Ukrainian Spacemodelling Sports Federation in cooperation with Association Noosphere, with the support of Noosphere founder Max Polyakov.
The Ukrainian Space Models 2020 Championship has been postponed several times due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the competition finally started, the participants were pleased to finally demonstrate their talents and publicly unveil all the models created during the long respite.
Spacemodelling is a very technical type of competition where participants compete in the construction, design, launch and operation of model rockets. There are 9 classes of rockets in the competition, which differ in the technical specifications of the model and the competition goals. This year, space modelers competed in the following:
- S4A, S6А, S9A – flight duration is the most important criterion
- S8D, S8E/P – both flight duration and landing accuracy are weighted
- S12A/P – also considers flight duration, but participants must also use three different recovery systems in different rounds: 1) autorotation, 2) streamers, 3) parachute. The athlete has only one model for all three rounds, and the body and nose of the rocket cannot be replaced.
- S7 – The jury evaluates the visual and large-scale identity to the “original model”, as well as the credibility of the launch and flight.
After several days of savage struggles and impressive launches, the adults and juniors ultimate champions formed the team “Nizhyn Station of Young Technicians (Nizhyn SYT)”. The complete competition standings are available here. The event was also marked by the launch of a model of the American rocket Mercury Redstone, with a height of 2 m 30 cm. It was operated by Nizhyn athlete Serhiy Shulyak. This is the largest model replica ever designed by Ukrainian space modelers. Despite the record size of the model, the victory in the S7 class was taken by Sergei’s teammate, multiple Ukrainian champion Serhiy Trush with the model of the Trailblazer 2 rocket.
Rocketry fans unable to attend due to quarantine could follow the entire championship competition online with CupNavigator, an innovative scoring system developed by Noosphere specifically for such sports competitions.
“Spacemodelling is an important part of Noosphere’s ecosystem, which we devised to encourage space and STEM education in Ukraine. Together with the Federation, our organization successfully hosted the European Spacemodelling Championship in Ukraine in 2015 and the World Championship in 2016. In 2018, we initiated a brand new type of competition – Ukraine Rocketry Challenge. It is distinctive in that there is a simulated valuable cargo on board the models represented by raw eggs, which must survive both launch and landing, said Noosphere founder Max Polyakov. “In addition to these competitions, we annually host the Ukrainian Championship, the Ukrainian Cup, the Yangel Cup as a stage of the World Cup, and other competitions and demonstrations. The result of such organized work is 48 athletes on the national Ukrainian team, including 12 Masters of Sports of Ukraine and 10 Masters of Sports of international class. More importantly, each competition attracts more than a thousand spectators.”
