Student-Built Rocket Breaks Multiple 20-Year Spaceflight Records

A team of undergraduate students from the University of Southern California's Rocket Propulsion Lab set multiple amateur spaceflight records with their rocket, Aftershock II. 'The student-made missile soared 90,000 feet (27,400 meters) beyond the previous record-holder -- a rocket launched more than 20 years ago,' reports Live Science. From the report: The students launched Aftershock II on Oct. 20 from a site in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The rocket stood about 14 feet (4 meters) tall and weighed 330 pounds (150 kilograms). The rocket broke the sound barrier just two seconds after liftoff and reached its maximum speed roughly 19 seconds after launch, the RPL team wrote in a Nov. 14 paper summarizing the launch. The rocket's engine then burned out, but the craft continued to climb as atmospheric resistance decreased, enabling it to leave Earth's atmosphere 85 seconds after launch and then reach its highest elevation, or apogee, 92 seconds later. At this point, the nose cone separated from the rest of the rocket and deployed a parachute so it could safely reenter the atmosphere and touch down in the desert, where it was collected by the RPL team for analysis.

The rocket's apogee was around 470,000 feet (143,300 m) above Earth's surface, which is 'further into space than any non-governmental and non-commercial group has ever flown before,' USC representatives wrote in a statement. The previous record of 380,000 feet (115,800 m) was set in 2004 by the GoFast rocket made by the Civilian Space Exploration Team. During the flight, Aftershock II reached a maximum speed of around 3,600 mph (5,800 km/h), or Mach 5.5 -- five and a half times the speed of sound. This was slightly faster than GoFast, which had also held the amateur speed record for 20 years.

But elevation and speed were not the only records Aftershock II broke. 'This achievement represents several engineering firsts,' Ryan Kraemer, an undergraduate mechanical engineering student at USC and executive engineer of the RPL team who will soon join SpaceX's Starship team, said in the statement. 'Aftershock II is distinguished by the most powerful solid-propellant motor ever fired by students and the most powerful composite case motor made by amateurs.'

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