Business
A rocket is also a budget
Carbon fiber, motors, avionics, machining time, and a flight to the competition field all have to be paid for before a single design decision matters. Business manages sponsor relations, fundraising, budget coordination, and external partnerships — connecting the team's technical ambitions to the resources needed to reach them.
It is the division that makes the difference between a good design and a vehicle that actually gets built.
Where the season gets paid for
No single source funds a competition season. Business runs all three in parallel, on different timelines, so a gap in one does not stop the build.
Industry sponsorship
Direct partnerships with companies that fund materials, motors, travel, and manufacturing. Business owns the outreach, the proposal, and the relationship afterwards — sponsors are kept informed, not just invoiced.
Competition & grant awards
Recognition that comes with funding attached. Preparing a submission, presenting to a panel, and representing the team well is Business work as much as it is engineering work.
Team-run fundraising
Campus sales and events run by the members themselves. Unglamorous, immediate, and the source that carries the team through the parts of the year when nothing else has landed yet.
Second place at the Caribbean Space Summit, awarded by the Puerto Rico Space Foundation — funding that came directly from representing the team well in front of a panel, not from a cold outreach email.
The money the team raises itself
Sponsorship arrives on its own schedule; parts have to be bought on the build's. Team-run sales cover that gap — planned, staffed, and run by members between classes, with every dollar going straight into the season.
It is the least glamorous funding channel and the most dependable one, because it is the only one the team controls entirely.
Being visible where the team lives
Before anyone sponsors DRACO or joins it, they have to have heard of it. Business owns the team's presence at UPRM.
Getting a few hundred students to care on an ordinary Tuesday is a different skill from writing a sponsorship proposal — and both land in this division.
That visibility compounds. Campus presence is where future members first encounter the team, where the university sees what its students are building, and where a local partner first hears the name.
Business does not sit apart from the engineering. It is the reason there is engineering to do.
/ For Companies
Interested in supporting the team?
The sponsorship proposal covers what DRACO does, what partnership looks like, and how support is recognized. Business handles every conversation from first contact onward.
What Business owns
Sponsorship outreach & communication
Finding the right companies, making the case, and keeping the conversation going after the first yes.
Fundraising planning
Building a funding calendar that matches when the team actually needs to buy things.
Budget & resource coordination
Tracking what has been committed, what has been spent, and what each division still needs.
Partnership development
Turning one-season sponsors into long-term industry relationships.
Support for sponsor-facing materials
The proposal, the recognition, and the reporting that make a partnership worth renewing.
Event & logistics support
Travel, competition logistics, and the coordination that gets people and hardware to the field.
Long-term team sustainability
Making sure the team that graduates hands over a funded program, not a fundraising problem.
What members work with
- Communication & sponsor relations
- Budgeting
- Proposal writing
- Public speaking
- Project coordination
- Event planning & networking
No engineering background required. Business is one of the clearest paths onto the team for students in administration, communications, economics, or any major where persuading people is the core skill.
The bottom line
Business transforms technical goals into executable projects — securing resources, strengthening industry relationships, and supporting the financial and operational planning the whole team depends on.
/ Join Business
Every Launch Starts With a Yes
If you want to build partnerships, run a budget, and represent a serious aerospace team to industry, Business is where that work happens.