‘AT FIRST, IT WAS JUST FOR FUN’ | Alumni of St. Cecilia’s College in Cebu prepare to launch the TALA in Capas, Tarlac. (Photo from the Philippines Air Force Public Affairs Office)
MANILA, Philippines — Four years ago, while their classmates busied themselves with school work and college entrance exams, six high school students from St. Cecilia’s College in Cebu province were literally working on rocket science.
They had embarked on a project to send a hybrid rocket into the skies, a tedious and complex mission beyond the comprehension of most of their peers. But as Christian Cantos, John Harold Abarquez, Joefer Emmanuel Capangpangan, Dorothy Mae Daffon, Joshua Pardorla, and Francis Espino would come to understand, a rocket, at its core, takes off by converting chemical energy into kinetic energy.
It’s a bit like “blowing a balloon and releasing it,” explained the group’s structure systems lead, Capangpangan. “When you blow a balloon and the amount of force released by [the expelled air] is equal to the lifting force, but in the opposite direction.”
So, on May 20, from Crow Valley Gunnery Range in Capas, Tarlac, the young scientists watched Newtonian mechanics in action as they launched their sleek 10-foot rocket into the atmosphere.
Like most amateur rockets, it didn’t go far-reaching a distance of 3,664 feet, or about 1,117 meters — not enough to enter what is considered space, about 100 kilometers.
But the launch of the aptly named “TALA,” or star, the Philippines’ first-ever hybrid rocket, was a baby step toward the country’s larger ambitions of exploring space, said Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) Director General Joel Joseph Marciano.
Inspire a Renaissance
“This is part of larger efforts to inspire a Renaissance” of exploration and innovation, he said. “This starts with the young people: we have to give them the environment to encourage them to keep building and to bring their ideas into reality.”
True enough, it was curiosity that first drove the six students—now in college pursuing engineering and medicine in different schools — to join the TALA mission in 2018.
At the time, the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Council on Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) had just awarded St. Cecilia’s College a research grant to develop a hybrid rocket, said their mentor and St. Cecilia’s College physics teacher Wilfredo Pardorla.
“This kind of activity was new to us Filipinos, so I became very intrigued,” said Abarquez. “At first, it was just for fun, but eventually, it became serious until it turned into the TALA team that we are familiar with today.” While other nations teach rocket science as early as high school, such projects are unusual in the Philippines.
“It can be hard for ordinary Filipinos to understand why space research is important, especially since there’s really no direct benefit,” said Cantos, who served as their avionics lead. “But there are a lot of technologies in our daily life that came from rocket science, like GPS technology… It’s only in the long term that you could appreciate rocket science.”
TALA’s goal was to propel a Can Satellite (CanSat) — a softdrink can-shaped satellite with all its major subsystems — around 5 km into the atmosphere.
The purpose wasn’t to orbit the Earth but to discover the end-to-end processes needed to engineer and design a satellite.
First takeoff
Most rockets either use solid propellant systems, or fuel in a solid state, or liquid propellant systems, which use fuel that is liquid at room temperature. In contrast, hybrid rockets like TALA use a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer, explained Daffon, who was in charge of designing the rocket’s recovery chute.
This makes the rocket cheaper and less complex than liquids; and safer, more controllable, and easier to transport and operate than solids.
Under the mentorship of Pardorla and fellow teacher Almida Plarisan, the team designed and built the rocket from scratch with 3D-printed composite materials.
They also performed calculations for TALA’s flight mission from launch to landing, making multiple simulations and rehearsals to make sure the rocket didn’t blow up.
TALA’s first takeoff attempt on March 11, 2020, at Mati Airport in Davao Oriental ended in failure due to pressure loss in one of the tanks. Then the group was forced to return to Cebu following school closures due to COVID-19.
On top of the lockdowns, the members of the team were heading off to university.
“We had different schedules, numerous projects and activities with tight deadlines, especially on Fridays, which made us often unavailable for meetings,” recalled Abarquez. “But despite these obstacles, we managed to find a way to meet halfway.”
“[There were] nights when we didn’t sleep,” added Daffon. “We stayed in the laboratory and performed different tests needed in different subsystems.”In May, the team was finally ready for launch at the Capas gunnery used by the military for live-fire exercises and bombing practices.
For a week, the team under the supervision of the Philippine Air Force set up the launch site and held more rehearsals under alternating sunny and rainy conditions.
Finally, May 20 came.
Seconds before launching at 11:57 a.m., a hush fell over the gray valley. At that moment, Capangpangan imagined how easily the project could have fallen apart had they been less determined. Gleeful shrieks
“There were so many unforeseen circumstances in building this rocket and we saw many failures too,” he said. “But we persevered.”
The countdown wound down: 3, 2, 1.
TALA soared for three minutes and three seconds, hitting a height of 1.117 km into the air at an acceleration of 118.2 meters per second squared, as gleeful shrieks erupted from the creators.
The CanSat was deployed successfully before gliding back down in an orange parachute.
The flight time was short, but its mission had taken years.
Even now, the team is studying data from TALA’s flight to figure out how they can improve it for the next project.
Ultimately, Pardorla said, the group hoped TALA’s story could inspire more Filipino students to reach for the stars.
“TALA is the start of the capability to go into space,” he said.
“Even before that rocket took off, a lot of work had already gone into it,” Marciano added. “In our country, we have to start doing [great] things again.”