Students build homemade rockets, break several world records.

A group of American students broke a series of world records by launching a homemade rocket farther and faster than any other amateur rocket...

The homemade Aftershock II rocket reached an altitude of 143,300 meters above the ground - Photo: USC Viterbi School of Engineering

According to LiveScience on November 22, students at the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (RPL) at the University of Southern California (USC) have built the Aftershock II rocket, which can reach an altitude of 143,300 meters above the ground and travel at "supersonic" speeds.

Aftershock II flew over 27,400 meters higher than the previous record, which belonged to a Chinese amateur rocket launched 20 years ago. The team launched Aftershock II on October 20th from a location in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The rocket was approximately 4 meters tall and weighed about 150 kg.

RPL reported that Aftershock II broke the sound barrier (exceeding the speed of sound) just 2 seconds after liftoff and reached its maximum speed after 19 seconds. The rocket's engine then burned out, but the remaining parts continued to ascend due to reduced air resistance, allowing it to leave Earth's atmosphere just 85 seconds after launch and reach its highest altitude 92 seconds later.

At that moment, the rocket's nose cone separated from the rest, deploying a parachute to re-enter the atmosphere and land safely in the desert. RPL collected the Aftershock II rocket nose cone for further analysis of the flight.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piX4VbWdADc[/embed]

USC students test-launch their homemade Aftershock II rocket - Source: YouTube/USCViterbi

Reaching an altitude of 143,300 meters above the ground, Aftershock II flew "further into space than any rocket from a non- governmental or non-commercial group has ever flown before," according to a USC representative. The previous record was 115,800 meters, held by the GoFast rocket built by the Chinese Civil Space Exploration Team and launched in 2004.

During flight, Aftershock II reached a top speed of approximately 5,800 km/h, or Mach 5.5 - 5.5 times the speed of sound - and was slightly faster than GoFast.

This record-breaking launch is the latest success for RPL. In 2019, another team became the first student group to launch a rocket beyond the Karman line, the imaginary boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. Aftershock II is the second rocket created by RPL students to achieve this milestone.

The group of students who "created" Aftershock II - Photo: USC Viterbi School of Engineering

To set the new records mentioned above, the student team applied a new heat-resistant paint to Aftershock II, coated the wings with titanium, and changed the material of some rocket components...

Researchers overseeing RPL were very impressed with the students' Aftershock II "product" given the minimal help they received from their teacher.

"This is a testament to the excellence we want to cultivate in our emerging aerospace engineers," said Dan Erwin, chair of the Aerospace Engineering department at USC.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/sinh-vien-lam-ten-lua-tu-che-pha-nhieu-ky-luc-the-gioi-20241122114047237.htm