ProtoSpace Mfg, a supplier of fast manufacturing for aerospace, protection, engineering, and analysis organizations, has introduced its return as lead sponsor of the International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) 2026, going down June 15-20 at Midland Worldwide Air & Area Port in Midland, Texas.
Organized by the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA), IREC is the world’s largest collegiate rocketry competitors and one of many aerospace business’s most essential expertise pipelines.
This yr’s occasion will convey collectively greater than 2,000 pupil engineers representing 175 college groups from over 20 nations throughout six continents.
All through the week, groups will current, take a look at, and launch rockets they’ve spent the previous yr designing, constructing, and validating whereas navigating rigorous security opinions, technical inspections, engineering shows, and launch operations. Groups will compete throughout a number of classes, together with missions reaching altitudes of as much as 45,000 ft.
Past serving as lead sponsor, ProtoSpace Mfg has offered direct manufacturing help to each the competitors and taking part groups.
The corporate has helped design and manufacture essential competitors infrastructure, together with launch gear, payload help {hardware}, and specialised elements used all through the occasion, whereas additionally supplying custom-manufactured components, enclosures, assemblies, and different {hardware} that assist pupil groups transfer quickly from design to testing and launch.
Dr Doug Milburn, co-founder and vice chairman of Protocase and ProtoSpace Mfg, says: “Most engineering college students spend years fixing issues on paper. These college students are constructing flight {hardware}, testing it, troubleshooting failures, and studying find out how to adapt when issues don’t go in line with plan.
“That’s the truth of aerospace engineering. The power to iterate rapidly, remedy issues below stress, and be taught from setbacks is what separates nice groups from common ones. Competitions like IREC present an atmosphere the place these abilities are developed at an extremely excessive degree, which is why they’re so useful to each college students and business.”
Many former IREC opponents have gone on to careers at main aerospace corporations, authorities companies, analysis establishments, and superior manufacturing organizations, making the competitors a key proving floor for the subsequent technology of technical expertise.
Steve Taylor, president of ESRA, says: “ESRA is proud to as soon as once more companion with ProtoSpace Mfg for IREC 2026. Yearly we see college students tackle more and more formidable engineering challenges, and their success relies on their capacity to quickly design, construct, take a look at, and enhance their programs.
“ProtoSpace Mfg understands that course of higher than anybody, and their help helps groups remodel concepts into flight-ready {hardware}.”
The 2026 competitors will characteristic a full week of technical shows, poster classes, security opinions, launch operations, and business engagement alternatives, culminating with an awards ceremony on June 20.
Launches will as soon as once more happen at Midland Worldwide Air & Area Port, one of many few FAA-licensed business spaceports in america.
Convention Day will convey collectively college students, business leaders, aerospace organizations, and competitors companions from around the globe.
Highlights embody ProtoPod Reside at IREC: Engineering, Velocity & Life After College, a dwell recording of Protocase and ProtoSpace Mfg’s innovation-focused podcast hosted by Jordan Rose and that includes visitors from Mercury Area Programs and Blue Origin.
Rose will even lead two classes of Mission DNA: The best way to Construct Initiatives That Really Transfer, a seminar targeted on accelerating execution, decreasing mission friction, and constructing momentum in complicated engineering environments.
ProtoSpace Mfg’s help of IREC displays the corporate’s broader funding in the way forward for aerospace manufacturing. The corporate works with universities, analysis organizations, startups, and 19 of the world’s 20 largest aerospace and protection contractors, serving to engineering groups get rid of manufacturing bottlenecks and speed up improvement cycles.
As aerospace exercise continues to broaden throughout North America, ProtoSpace Mfg can also be rising its personal footprint, together with important investments in Wilmington, North Carolina, to help rising demand from the aerospace and protection sectors.
