Student-Built Rocket Breaks Multiple 20-Year Spaceflight Records (livescience.com) 28
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."
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."
Great Rocketry (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes. Outstanding achivement.
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Re:Maybe they can get to the moon (Score:5, Informative)
What drunken zookeeper was responsible for your conception, you fucking imbecile?
Re:Maybe they can get to the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
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I guess the article is badly written.
I doubt it makes sense to open a parachute outside of the atmosphere.
Perhaps they had some kind of air brake?
Have to read the links ...
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Sheesh, at least eat breakfast. Crankypants. Or have a Snickers
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By the "true flatness of the Earth", you mean the curvature caused by Earth being a spheroid with a diameter of 12,700 km, right?
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Re:Maybe they can get to the moon (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Maybe they can get to the moon (Score:2)
Re: I see what they did there... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I see what they did there... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, they most devilishly tried to get away with putting the story in context. But your keen perception saw through the ruse!
Putting into perspective (Score:2)
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You should be impressed, but not for anything relative to orbit.
Altitude is difficult, but orbit isn't about altitude, it's about velocity. It requires a metric fuckton more energy to achieve orbit than to 'just' get into space.
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Of the energy required to reach low earth orbit, only about 1/40th goes to gaining height, with the rest going to gaining speed. They reached mach 5.5 but that's less than a quarter of orbital velocity, so less than 1/16th of the energy. It's an impressive achievement, but very far from reaching orbit.
Higher than the New Shepard launch (Score:3)
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THIS is how to motivate students! (Score:5, Insightful)
It can't be accidental that this group of students achieved this. This speaks to a well-run program that encourages students to excel and achieve difficult things. These students will never forget the lessons they've learned on the way to this achievement. Other schools should look at what USC is doing and try to imitate it.