ESRA SPLAS CRUCES, N.M. (February 3, 2025) – In an announcement made late Friday (Jan. 31, 2025) evening, the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) will be holding its annual Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) at the Midland International Air & Space Port in Midland, Texas, from June 9-14, 2025.

The announcement marks the first venue change for the IREC since the 2017 competition.

For seven years beginning in 2017 and concluding in 2024, ESRA along with the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) partnered and jointly held IREC at Spaceport America. During that time, the IREC rebranded as the Spaceport America Cup (SAC) and grew significantly. The growth period of over a half-decade culminated with the 2024 Spaceport America Cup which featured the largest number of competing teams and launches (122) of any previous competition.

In that time, Spaceport America, the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, has also grown, with an increasing number of aerospace tests and operations. This includes High Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS), which are large UAVs that are designed to fly at 60,000' and above for weeks at a time. The spaceport has also seen Virgin Galactic complete 11 suborbital space flights which have sent 32 individuals to space. The spaceport has also had many other customers such as smaller UAVs, rocket engine tests, and vertical rocket launches from UP Aerospace.

NMSA and the surrounding communities regret seeing ESRA move the event, but this also allows ESRA and NMSA to continue expanding their respective missions without impeding on important goals of each organization.

"We truly wish the student competitors, ESRA, and the Midland, Texas community the best," said Scott McLaughlin, Executive Director of NMSA. "The IREC is a world-class event, and we are happy to see it grow, and to continue to challenge college students from around the world."

Besides aerospace events at the spaceport, NMSA has a mission for workforce development and STEM-related outreach at the K-12 level. The Spaceport America Cup helped fulfill those goals. However, NMSA will continue that mission with smaller college-level events as well as focusing more on high school level activities. The latter is particularly important for encouraging New Mexico's youth to choose rewarding careers in aerospace, as well as to build the workforce that the spaceport customers need, both now, and as we work towards orbital launch and reentry activities.

To that end, NMSA is currently overseeing three separate university capstone projects between New Mexico State University (NMSU) and New Mexico Tech (NMT), with engineering students designing and building small rocket launch rails as well as supporting equipment for the spaceport's larger commercial launch rail. These projects align with the agency's STEM-related mission and are expanding Spaceport's abilities to support future customer and student launches.

NMSA recently has partnered with NMSU's Atomic Aggies rocketry team to conduct National Association of Rocketry (NAR) sanctioned launches at the Spaceport, the first of which successfully took place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday, Jan. 19, 2025), with multiple students achieving their NAR Level 1 certifications. Launch operations were planned and run primarily by students, two of whom are interns at NMSA.

For more information regarding the 2025 IREC, visit www.soundingrocket.org.