Gorgun watches TEKNOFEST rocket finals in Aksaray as 73 teams launch
Haluk Gorgun, head of Turkey’s Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB), spent the closing day of the TEKNOFEST Rocket Competition at the Hisar firing range outside Aksaray, watching student-built rockets leave the pad. The 2026 final, run by missile maker ROKETSAN, brought together 73 teams, seven of them from six countries outside Turkey.
Gorgun walked the line of team tents after the launches. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, he said 1.6 million competitors had applied to TEKNOFEST events this year, with contests running across 13 provinces.
Ninth edition on the Aksaray range
The Aksaray leg has now been held nine times. A total of 2,139 teams applied across six categories — high school, medium altitude, high altitude, challenging mission, original hybrid-fuel motor and original liquid-fuel motor — and 73 cleared the design and qualification stages to reach the final, held between 7 and 13 September.
That category list is where the engineering bar sits. The hybrid and liquid-fuel classes do not let teams bolt a commercial motor into an airframe; the propulsion system has to be designed and built by the students themselves. On a liquid engine, the feed line, cooling arrangement and ignition sequence all have to work together on the first attempt — an unforgiving problem for undergraduate groups. In the altitude classes, reaching the target apogee counts for less than it sounds: payload carriage and recovery systems have to behave as predicted for a flight to score.
Gorgun said teams had arrived better prepared than in previous years, and that accumulated experience was showing up in the results.
Foreign entries widen
Last year three Malaysian teams travelled to Aksaray. This year Malaysia was joined by Saudi Arabia, India, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan and Indonesia, taking the international field to seven teams. The list tracks closely with the countries Turkey works with on defence and aerospace programmes.
Noting that the competition grows broader and harder each year, Gorgun said the field now reflects a mix of returning teams and newcomers drawing on their predecessors’ experience, adding that ROKETSAN’s senior management and working staff support the event throughout.
Looking past today’s requirements
Gorgun said TEKNOFEST continues to widen its scope, and that the organisers are confident the young engineers trained on these ranges will produce fast answers not to today’s requirements but to tomorrow’s. The confidence and opportunities they gain, he said, will feed into Turkey’s independence in every sense.
ROKETSAN General Manager Murat Ikinci wished the teams well and said he expected participation to keep rising both at home and internationally. ROKETSAN Board Chairman Faruk Yigit described the event as an investment in the future.
Elvan Kuzucu Hidir, board chair of the Turkey Technology Team Foundation (T3), said the foundation would continue its work in all 81 Turkish provinces and in other parts of the world. Aksaray Governor Murat Duru said the province was pleased to host the event.
The rocket competition is one strand of a programme that closes with TEKNOFEST Southeast, scheduled for 30 September to 4 October at Sanliurfa GAP Airport.
Sources: Anadolu Agency, Presidency of Defence Industries
