A team of students from the University of Southern California (USC) have broken the amateur spacecraft records for speed, altitude and power after launching their “Aftershock II” rocket more than 143,000 metres above the Earth’s surface.
The rocket also smashed the sound barrier and achieved Mach 5.5 speeds, travelling at 5,800 kilometres per hour at its maximum speed.
The USC’s Rocket Propulsion Lab (RPL) demolished the previous record set by China’s Civilian Space Exploration Team’s “GoFast” rocket, achieving heights 27,400 metres beyond the previous record.
Innovations in rocket propellant technology
“This achievement represents several engineering firsts,” Ryan Kraemer, executive engineer of USCRPL and an undergraduate student majoring in mechanical engineering, said in a 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 team launched the rocket from the Black Rock Desert launch area in Nevada, equipped with a new thermal protection system using a thermal paint coating and titanium-coated stabiliser fins.
“Thermal protection at hypersonic speeds is a major challenge at the industry level, and the protective paint system that we developed performed perfectly, enabling the rocket to return largely intact,” Kraemer explained.
“We also made an important upgrade to the fins, replacing the bare carbon edge of previous iterations with titanium leading edges.
“The titanium not only prevented fraying but actually turned blue from the intense heat during flight through anodisation, which really demonstrates the extreme conditions our rocket successfully endured.”
Apart from the solid propellant and thermal protective innovations, the RPL team designed a new control and sensing unit for the rocket, called a High Altitude Module for Sensing, Telemetry, and Electronic Recovery (HASMTER).
“This extraordinary group of students shows how to imagine, what can be done in the lab, and how to make it a reality,” USC Dean Yannis Yortsos said.