Have you ever wanted to design a hypersonic vehicle and then watch it get built and tested? Here's your chance!

We are hoping to field one or two teams for the 2026 Undergraduate Hypersonic Flight Design Competition, run by the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office (JHTO) University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH). This is a national competition open to undergraduate teams where winning designs will be manufactured and tested in a hypersonic wind tunnels at CUBRC or in a gun-launched flight experiment at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL).

🛸 THE CHALLENGE

Design an unpowered, aerodynamically stable hypersonic projectile for low-altitude operation (< 30 km) involving integration of aerodynamics, aerothermal analysis, structural sizing, stability & control, and trajectory optimization all at Mach 8.

This is a fantastic opportunity to apply your coursework to a real-world, cutting-edge engineering challenge and get hands-on experience with hypersonic vehicle design. We are hoping to form one or two teams of up to 15 students each who will participate during the Fall 2026 semester. Attached is a PDF with preliminary information regarding the competition.

Please express your interest in the competition by filling out the Qualtrics survey found here by June 3^rd, 2026: https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6G5QEH5fVikznaS