<
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/students-homemade-rocket-soars-faster-and-farther-into-space-than-any-other-amateur-spacecraft-smashing-20-year-records>
'A group of U.S. students has smashed a series of world records after launching
a "homemade" rocket farther and faster into space than any other amateur
rocket. The student-made missile soared 90,000 feet (27,400 meters) beyond the
previous record-holder — a rocket launched more than 20 years ago.
The record-breaking rocket, named
Aftershock II, was designed and built by
students at the University of Southern California's (USC) Rocket Propulsion Lab
(RPL) — a group run entirely by undergraduate students. 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.'
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
