A 35-foot Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital rocket was successfully launched this morning from the Wallops Flight facility carrying experiments designed by students as part of an educational program.
The rocket lifted off at 5:30 a.m.
The experiments reached a height of 73 miles before descending by parachute and landing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The payload was recovered and the students will get their experiments later in the day to begin analyzing the data that has been collected.
It’s all part of Rocket Week! a workshop for more than 120 students and educators to get first-hand experience with the world of rocketry.
Facility spokesman Keith Kohler said, "For our engineering students, NASA is still considered one of the main places they'd still like to work. So, NASA doing this with Colorado space grant it's to bring on the nexdt generation of engineers and scientists." He added, "From what we've seen from this program, things are really looking good."
The students come from states such as Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.
Launch Teams are now preparing for a two-rocket salvo on June 24 in support of the Daytime Dynamo experiment designed to study a global electrical current as it sweeps through the ionosphere.
