ESRA received reports that some scoring anomalies were identified by teams for the 2023 Spaceport America Cup competition. Upon investigation, we determined that some points were not properly assigned in all cases for some teams. We have posted the corrected and updated scores on our website at https://www.soundingrocket.org/2023-sa-cup.html.
In this update, Team 130 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities overtook Team 7 BYU by 1.2 points. ESRA recognizes Team 130 for their achievement; however, the judges choice selection of overall Spaceport America Cup winner remains with Team 7 Brigham Young University.
Additionally, Team 118 - University of Canterbury now has more points than Team 22 - Ecole de technologie superieure (ETS) in the 30k COTS Category. Both teams have done an outstanding job in their category and ESRA congratulates both teams as winners in this category.
Rest assured, our all-volunteer ESRA team takes these errors very seriously. We have received a lot of feedback on ways we can improve our scoring accuracy and transparency to identify errors sooner for all teams. These changes will be considered carefully as we look forward to the 2024 event. Thank you all.
Cliff Olmsted
President & Chairperson
Experimental Sounding Rocket Association
