On Saturday morning, May 17, on the storied Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, this black and gold StarCRAFT rocket blasted into a flawless flight and reached an altitude of 4,850 feet before popping its parachute and drifting serenely back to earth. Students from Vanderbilt’s Aerospace Club, who created and built the rocket, were the defending champions in NASA’s annual Student Launch rocketry competition, vying against teams from 31 other universities, including Cornell, Northwestern and Notre Dame. For the second year in a row, their rocket propelled Vanderbilt to a first-place finish in the competition.
Read more and watch a video about the competition.