American Rocketry Challenge

How AK Rocketry fits into TARC — rules, two high school teams, and the arc of a competition season from registration to qualification flights and finals.

What is ARC?

The American Rocketry Challenge (ARC, often still called TARC) is the largest student rocket contest in the country: middle and high school teams design and build a model rocket to fly a payload to a target altitude and duration spelled out in that year’s rule manual — then prove it with official, documented qualification flights.

2025–2026 season timeline

A typical ARC arc: register, design and review, build and test, then qualification flights and finals.

  1. Jul–Aug 2025

    Registration & rulebook

    Teams register for ARC and study the current task: target altitude, flight duration, payload rules, and motor constraints. Ardrey Kell confirms two rosters and safety expectations for the year.

  2. Sept–Oct 2025

    Design simulation & reviews

    Iterative design in OpenRocket (or similar), club design reviews with advisors, and tradeoffs among stability, mass, recovery, and motor choice before metal and fiberglass get committed.

  3. Nov 2025–Jan 2026

    Build, test launches & logs

    Construction, prep for club-organized and partner-field launch days (e.g. ROCC / Charlotte Aeromodelers), and flight logging so qualification attempts aren’t the first time the rocket leaves the rail.

  4. Feb–Apr 2026

    Qualification flights

    Official scored flights per the manual — usually multiple windows to submit scores. This phase determines whether a team earns a ticket to the national fly-off, not a separate regional tournament bracket.

  5. Spring 2026 · TBA

    National Finals fly-off

    Invited teams travel to the finals site for the last flights of the season — one rocket, one task, full officiation. Details track whatever ARC publishes for that year.

  6. After finals · TBA

    Debrief & handoff

    Conditional

    Lessons learned, tool inventory, and documentation passed to the next officers — optional outreach recap if we competed at finals and have advisor-approved stories to tell.